Harpers Ferry's steep, picturesque site precluded any sort of grid plan. The Lower Town, at the tip of the peninsula, consists of Shenandoah and Potomac streets, paralleling the river for which each is named, and High, or Washington, Street. Washington intersects Shenandoah Street, then leads uphill to the Upper Town and the adjoining community of Bolivar. The National Historical Park focuses on the Lower Town and has a somewhat tenuous relationship to the upper stretches of Washington Street. Boundaries are all too easily observed: buildings under National Park Service jurisdiction, carefully restored to their appearance at the time of John Brown's raid, have something of an antiseptic quality, while privately owned structures uphill, many equally old, have been converted to enterprises aimed all too blatantly at tourists.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.