Parkersburg, WV news and local guide

Parkersburg was the western terminus of the Staunton-Parkersburg and Northwestern turnpikes. In 1857 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad built a branch south from Wheeling, but travelers connecting to the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad had to take a steamboat 14 miles north to Marietta, Ohio, until the B&O built a bridge designed by Jacob Linville across the Ohio to Belpre in 1868 to 1870, part of its main line from Baltimore to St. Louis. The bridge, now the Parkersburg Bridge, drew trade away from Marietta. During the Civil War the town was a transportation and medical center for Union forces. In the oil and gas boom after the war, Parkersburg became a major refining center for the nearby fields at Volcano and Burning Springs. The Camden Consolidated Oil Company, founded in 1866 by Johnson Newlon Camden, later a U.S. senator, dominated the business and was sold to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil in 1875, and Camden became a Standard director and a dominant figure in state politics. After World War II Parkersburg was one of the leading industrial centers of the Ohio Valley, making chemicals, glass, tools, rayon, plastics, iron and steel. Sources Wikipedia: Parkersburg, West Virginia