Existing comment:
A Town Carried on History's Currents:
Harpers Ferry has always ridden the rises and falls of mingled natural forces and human aims. The earliest Native American nomadic hunting camps in the region, for example, gave way to settled Indian farming villages, succeeded by an American colonial outpost, and then by a manufacturing town indebted to but wary of the rivers.
Although natural resources and human goals converged here, all too often natural and manmade disasters swamped or even sank some of the town's proudest achievements.
Bollman Bridge:
Nothing better symbolizes the interplay of historic and natural forces at Harpers Ferry than the "Bollman" bridge. Wendell Bollman, a self-taught civil engineer, was foreman of bridges for the B&O Railroad throughout most of the 1840s. His iron-trussed railroad bridges were the first to use iron in all the main structural elements. The Bollman bridge at Harpers Ferry was the longest and most important on the B&O line. From 1870 to 1894, it carried the B&O mainline. Then, when the rail right of way was moved, the bridge continued to carry highway traffic. Damaged in the 1924 flood, it was rebuilt, only to be destroyed by the flood of 1936. |