Fort Boreman

Fort Boreman is a Civil War fortification overlooking the city of Parkersburg. The park near the fort offers some beautiful views of the city of Parkersburg and the river, as well as some cannons and a short path leading up to the trail at the top of the fort. It's a great chance to get outside and enjoy some really beautiful views of the whole city of Parkersburg.

At some unknown time in the remote past, the promontory known today throughout the Parkersburg area as Fort Boreman Hill came to be inhabited by humans. In May 1860, Harper's New Monthly Magazine published a sketch of a flat-topped Indian mound surrounded by a parapet identified only as a "Mound and Circle Near Blennerhassett's Island." No mound of such appearance has existed within living memory, but the late Wood County historian, C. R. Rector, identified it as having been situated on top of Fort Boreman Hill. The prehistoric Indians valued the hill for the same reasons it is highly regarded today: its towering elevation, its excellent building sites, and the matchless view it offers of the surrounding countryside.

While the early years of the hill's history is shrouded in mystery, it is known that it played a role in early Wood County as timber was cut from its slopes, floated across the Little Kanawha River and used to construct the county's first "official" courthouse.

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