Harpers Ferry Armory

Then

The second federal armory, a long row of shops beside the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on the Potomac River. Just before the war it had 400 employees and had made some 600,000 firearms.

Outnumbered Union soldiers set fire to the armory on April 18, 1861, as Virginia militia advanced. Residents saved most of the machinery, which the Confederates shipped by rail to Winchester and on to the Richmond Armory, and the Mississippi rifle machinery went to the Fayetteville Arsenal. The armory was never rebuilt.

Now

Built over

The armory grounds are mostly covered by railroad embankments. Its fire engine house, known as John Brown's Fort, survives and was moved by the National Park Service to near its original location.

Track in service today runs beside the site, on a line owned by Norfolk Southern.