Piers of the 1868 Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge

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Many railroad bridges and a highway bridge operated on this alignment from 1852 through 1936.

On October 16, 1859 John Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 19 men across the railroad bridge in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory.

Confederate troops blew up the railroad bridge on June 14, 1861. The bridge was rebuilt and replaced nine times during the war.

The B&O Railroad began construction of a Bollman Truss bridge in 1868 and it began operation in 1870. Rail traffic shifted to a new replacement bridge in 1894 and the Bollman truss bridge was paved as a highway bridge. The bridge was badly damaged in the 1924 floods and rebuilt. It was swept away in the 1936 flood and never rebuilt.