The giant flagpole on top of the hill at Fort Boreman Park. (Photo by Art Smith)

If you drive down Market Street in Parkersburg you can’t help but notice the giant American flag flying high on the hill on the other side of the Little Kanawha River. The flagpole is the apex of Fort Boreman Park, which offers the ideal vantage point of Parkersburg and Belpre. The view from the hilltop is the reason the fort was constructed in 1863.

Rail lines passing through Parkersburg provided an important connection. The Union Army established the fort to assure that the link between Wheeling and Parkersburg would not fall into Confederate hands.

Company A of the 11th West Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment built the fort consisting of 4-foot-deep trenches that circled the top of the hill.

Manning the zig-zag pattern of trenches, troops, as many as 100, used as many as five cannons to make sure that the rail lines that passed below the hill remained open. The fort included quarters for the troops so they could remain there through cold weather. The triangle shaped fort measured roughly 154 feet on each side. The fort saw no hostile action during the Civil War and only shot the cannons for celebrations.

The greatest value of the fort was not the cannons or guns, but the incredible view of not only the city, but also the Little Kanawha and Ohio rivers. The rails and rivers offered the area a vital link to other cities then, as they do today.

Once the war ended, the fort slowly returned to the natural state from which it had come until another transportation artery, the U.S. 50 project, changed how people could access that area of Parkersburg.

A nearby exit and an improved road meant that the area could now once again be used to view downtown Parkersburg, rail traffic and the rivers. Fort Boreman Park opened to the public in 2007.

The entire Belpre curve of the Ohio River can be viewed from the observation area and you can view both Blennerhassett Island downstream from Parkersburg and Vienna upstream. Follow a wooden boardwalk and you will be able to see several miles up the Little Kanawha as well.

Take another path up a hill and you look down Market Street from the flagpole you see when you are driving down the street.

Several picnic shelters and a small playground offer families a chance to gather.

The fort, and now the park, are named for Arthur I. Boreman, the first governor of West Virginia.

Art Smith is online manager of The Marietta Times and The Parkersburg News and Sentinel, he can be reached at asmith@newsandsentinel.com.