The small town of Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Panhandle is often referred to as a gateway into West Virginia. It was a prominent place during the American Civil War, and it was the site of John Brown’s Raid.
Today, it’s home to the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park as well as nearly 300 residents. The park along with the commercial area of the town sees thousands of visitors each year from around the country and all over the world.
In June 2017, Harpers Ferry elected a new mayor – Harpers Ferry resident Wayne Bishop. Reporter Liz McCormick sat down with Bishop to hear how he plans to lead the iconic West Virginia town.
Saturday marks one-year since a fire devastated four buildings in the commercial district of historic Harpers Ferry – two of those buildings were built before the Civil War. Eight shops and two apartments were lost, and by the time the fire was put out nearly eight hours after it began, it left behind almost $2 million in damages.
A year later, the town is on its way to recovery, but one couple still vividly remembers the scene that unfolded before them that morning.
Harpers Ferry is well-known for its significance during the American Civil War, and it’s one of West Virginia’s most popular tourist destinations. But on the morning of the July 23, 2015 fire, many residents worried that would all be lost…including Ron and Laura Clark.
The Clarks sell sporting goods at their shop in Harpers Ferry called The Outfitter. They also live in town – just up the street from where the fire began. This week, we sat on their porch, as they told me what happened on that early morning of July 23, 2015.
“It was a beautiful night,” Laura remembered, “I had the fan on and the door open, and it was trash night, and I heard this rustling noise, and since it was trash night, I thought it was the bear that was getting into the trash.”
But it wasn’t a bear, and the rustling didn’t go away.
“And I walked a half a block down, and I turned my head around the corner,” she said, “and there’s this staircase in the middle of the block, and in the center of the staircase, the blaze was going.”
Laura was the first person to make a 911 call that morning. After she woke up her husband Ron, she ran back down to the burning buildings to try and wake up residents who were asleep inside.
“I was calling 911 simultaneously as I was banging on the door,” she explained, “and it was horrifying. I mean, I could not get them awake; they were on the third level, the doorbell was broken, and it seemed like forever I was banging.”
Laura was finally able to get the attention of the two people inside the apartment. In the end, that building suffered serious damages.
Laura’s husband Ron was also up making calls by then and taking video of the fire on his phone.
“The fire started moving faster and jumped to another building, so I put my cell phone camera down and just started going down the street and banging on doors,” he said.
After about 20 or 30 minutes, fire and rescue crews showed up and contained the blaze. By late morning, the fire was finally put out.
It took Ron and Laura about two weeks to get over the trauma and even sleep well again.
But, in a matter of months, the town began to bounce back. Two shops displaced from the fire reopened in Harpers Ferry, while a few others reopened in nearby cities. Groups from both in and out of West Virginia, including West Virginia University, sent aid to help in the recovery efforts.
One year later, the reconstruction of the four buildings damaged in the fire is coming along smoothly. Harper’s Ferry Mayor Gregory Vaughn estimates the rehabilitation of most of the buildings will be complete by early winter.
Vaughn says the devastation hit shop owners’ the hardest, but he says since day one, they’ve been resilient.
“I think that even though it was a very difficult day for them, I think today they are so positive,” he noted, “I know one of the shop owners who was displaced, had their best year, probably, in decades with business.”
On Sunday, July 24, a special church service and luncheon will be held at Camp Hill-Wesley United Methodist Church in Harpers Ferry honoring the fire and rescue teams and other personnel who fought the July 2015 fire. The service will begin at 11:00 a.m.
One year later, the cause of the fire still hasn’t been determined.
Harpers Ferry is moving right-along in its rebuilding process since a fire devastated four historic buildings last July.
We last heard on the status of the Harpers Ferry rebuilding process back in December. Now, as we begin approaching summer and the one year mark since the fire, the town is getting closer and closer to being restored.
In December, one of the main building owners, Barbara Pusateri said she hoped to be back and fully operational with businesses and apartments by the end of the summer.
Harpers Ferry Mayor Gregory Vaughn just spoke with Pusateri.
“She informed me that the restoration for her properties are going along very well,” Vaughn said, “and she believes that she may come on-line in late summer or early fall. Full restoration.”
Vaughn also says two other property owners hope to be in working order by October or November. Vaughn also notes all the debris in the structures is now gone. Debris-removal began just before Thanksgiving.
“They were very careful in removing all of the burned material; that is all gone, the buildings have been gutted. They are down to studs and floor joist and ceiling joist, and now they are beginning work inside to restore the inside and also with the outside structures.”
West Virginia University’s Extension Service has been working with Harpers Ferry since September. They provided contractors and other experts to look over the damage and consider future projects to beautify the town.
Vaughn says the Extension Service has also helped the town apply for a grant this past March.
“It would be restoration and beautification of the main tourist corridor along High Street. High Street is one of the principle and historic streets in Harpers Ferry, and there’s quite a bit of work that could be done there to make the experience of our visitors even better than what it is, and that’s what we are attempting to achieve with this grant.”
High Street is home to two of the buildings caught in the July fire, including Pusateri’s.
At this time, Vaughn says the cause of the fire is still undetermined.
It’s been four and a half months since a fire broke out in Harpers Ferry that devastated its historic commercial district and caused millions of dollars in damages. Residents and nearby fire departments swarmed the town’s streets in the early hours of the morning to do what they could to contain the fire. Nearly eight hours later, the fire was put out but left behind the wood and stone frames of four buildings, some which were built before the Civil War.
Since that day, the town of Harpers Ferry has moved quickly toward recovery and is getting close to rebuilding. West Virginia Public Broadcasting has been following this story since the fire; here’s a look at how things are going now as 2015 comes to a close.
It was just around 3:15 in the morning on July 23 when property owner, Barbara Pusateri woke to her phone ringing.
She lives in Charles Town, about ten miles away from Harpers Ferry, where one of her buildings had been caught in an early morning fire.
“I’m thinking this is just a minor thing,” Pusateri remembered, “that somebody started some kind of a little campfire on the pavilion maybe or something, the fire department got it out, everything’s fine.”
But everything wasn’t fine. Pusateri says after making a few more phone calls, she went to the internet to find out more. That’s where she saw a video of the Harpers Ferry fire.
“And on the video, I can see it crossing rapidly across over toward my building and then going down the stairway and up the stairway with huge amount of speed and heat and huge flames, and my building immediately started to catch fire,” she said.
Pusateri’s building was one of four that caught fire in July. It housed five of the nine businesses destroyed by the blaze and the two apartments.
One of those businesses was Cindi Dunn’s small boutique, The Vintage Lady.
Dunn was one of two shop owners who were able to reopen at a new location in Harpers Ferry after the fire. She opened the “new” Vintage Lady just a few feet up the street from her previous location on Labor Day weekend.
“And it’s been different here, but it’s been a good different,” Dunn said, “We love it. We love the space. We love the response that people have had, and we feel like things have fallen pretty much into place.”
After the fire, the entire town felt an outpouring of support from local communities, state and federal legislators, neighboring states, and even from around the world.
Then in September, West Virginia University’s Extension Service stepped forward and provided aid by way of contractors and other experts to look over the damage and figure out the best plan for rebuilding and for the future of Harpers Ferry as a whole.
Demolition began just before Thanksgiving, and Harpers Ferry Mayor, Gregory Vaughn, anticipates debris removal will be complete by January 2016. He also says property owners, like Barbara Pusateri, will be able to get their building permits by February if not sooner.
And Vaughn says getting the buildings to look period again won’t be difficult either.
“The exterior of the four buildings, or the three buildings, the historic ones, escaped a lot of the damage,” he noted, “Most of the damage was inside, and although there was charring and burning, the wood is 1840, 1830, it’s not your typical two by fours that you buy today that is quick growth wood. This wood is extremely durable.”
Both Mayor Vaughn and property owner, Barbara Pusateri say they’re unsure exactly how much the rebuilding process will end up costing, but both expect it to be pretty staggering considering the millions of dollars in damages.
Pusateri says the debris removal of her building alone cost $100,000 and says most of what she’s paying for her rebuild is out of pocket or through her insurance.
But like the day of the fire, she says she’s trying to stay positive through this process.
“It’s still very depressing, especially at Christmas,” Pusateri said, “because all the buildings were probably the most beautiful during the Christmas season, and a lot of my friends have been sending me pictures of my building; how it looked a year ago, how it looked two years ago with all the decorations up, the shops all open, and looking at those, it’s very sad, but then again, I know that, that same appearance, if not a better appearance is going to come in the future, and I just have to, you know, wait and be patient; that’s the biggest thing.”
Pusateri says she hopes she can begin moving in new tenants by summer 2016.
The cause of the fire is still undetermined and the investigation into its start is still ongoing.
Harpers Ferry’s commercial district is recovering faster than expected after a devastating fire caused millions of dollars in damages.
Demolition began about two weeks ago on the four buildings in Harpers Ferry’s commercial district. The buildings housed nine businesses. Debris is being moved by hand to protect what’s left of the historic structures.
Harpers Ferry Mayor, Gregory Vaughn, says he anticipates most of the debris will be moved out by the first of the year, and he says the building owners should have permits by February to begin rebuilding.
In September, the West Virginia University Extension Service decided to aid the town. Mayor Vaughn says Harpers Ferry wouldn’t be where it is now in its recovery process without the agency’s help. Vaughn is especially grateful to WVU President Gordon Gee, who, Vaughn says, played an important role in making services available.
The fire started on July 23 around 3:18 in the morning. It took roughly eight hours to contain the fire. At this time, the cause is still under investigation.
The fire was fully contained eight hours later, but those shop owners had lost everything. Although shocked and heartbroken by the loss, the community of Harpers Ferry, surrounding areas, and officials from around the state came together to support the town’s recovery.
It’s been a little more than one month since this day in Harpers Ferry.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The day of the Harpers Ferry fire.
“It was just up in flames. Everybody lost their businesses down here, down on this side. It was just awful. It was just chaos,” said Jeff Gaskins, a Harpers Ferry resident who watched as the fire engulfed the four buildings – most of which were built before the Civil War.
Cindi Dunn lost her small boutique called the Vintage Lady, which featured jewelry and many made-in-West Virginia items.
“It’s a personal, of course loss, huge loss, but the loss for our town is devastating. This is such a beautiful town, and people come here literally from all over the world,” Dunn said.
Six weeks after the fire and just a handful of steps up the hill from the location of Dunn’s original shop is the “new” Vintage Lady.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The “new” Vintage Lady.
Her new space was once a small wine shop. The ceiling is high and has seven windows that look out at the grassy mountains in Harpers Ferry. There’s jewelry, mugs, socks, books, jam, and scarves ready to be sold.
“We selected the best of the things that we had in the other shop. It’s obviously a smaller space, and so we just went through and picked out our very top best sellers, and I think we did it,” Dunn explained.
Of those nine business owners who lost everything in the fire, Dunn is the only one so far who’s been able to reopen in Harpers Ferry.
Dunn says the long-term plan is to be able to move back into her old space if possible, which she spent twelve years in, but says that’s not something she’s worrying about right now.
“My bigger concern right now is for the town that I want the town to rebound from this. It’s such a huge impact financially, you know, so right now, I just want the town to rebuild, I want things to bounce back, so I just want people to come and see the beauty that’s Harpers Ferry.”
And things are beginning to bounce back.
Help Comes from Community, West Virginia University
Community members and many others have donated money to the cause. State and Federal legislators have been doing what they can to aid in the recovery process.
Last week, Harpers Ferry Mayor Gregory Vaughn held a community meeting to discuss where the town is in its recovery and where to go from here.
A big part of that is West Virginia University’s recent involvement. WVU’s Extension Service Program is working to match local needs with the university’s resources.
Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Harpers Ferry residents gather at Mather Training Center for the Mayor’s community meeting to discuss the town’s future and aid from West Virginia University.
“We’re getting structural engineers came here, architects, landscape architects have been here, your marketing specialists have been here, your community development specialists who conduct these types of things that we had this evening, we don’t have those kinds of resources to do that, and for a community like Harpers Ferry to be able to sit down with the big shots in Morgantown, and for them to come and assist us is just remarkable,” Mayor Vaughn explained.
WVU is mostly offering assistance in the way of research. Vaughn says he’s not interested in money from the university, but is working on securing grants on the federal level, from the private sector, and is seeking some emergency funds to help pay for things like the half a million gallons of water used to put out the fire.
Chad Proudfoot is the WVU Extension Service program coordinator. Over the next few months, he’ll be spending three days a week in Harpers Ferry as the liaison between the town and Morgantown.
“The university sort of looked at Harpers Ferry as being in a very unique situation, because of its national importance and what it’s doing, and then also its drive, and really their resilient attitude to want to make things better, to want to move forward from this, and so it’s a very town driven project,” Proudfoot said, “WVU is able to provide some in-kind assistance, but everything is really being headed up by the town and its people. What a wonderful thing to be a part of.”
Back at Cindi Dunn’s shop, she’s also looking toward the future.
“I think that this is a turning point for Harpers Ferry, and I am sorry as to how it happened, but life just happens that way sometimes, so it’s really new beginnings,” Dunn said.
For the next year, West Virginia University will be working closely with Harpers Ferry to figure out what can be done to bring the town out of the ashes and make it better than before.
