Starting with a ground-breaking celebration, construction began Monday to complete a 900-square-foot expansion and renovation that will double the visitors center’s space by next spring. The $750,000 construction project will make more room for–in addition to restrooms and offices — interactive exhibits highlighting the attractions to this historic town and throughout Jefferson County.
“First impressions are important,” said Annette Gavin, CEO of the Jefferson County Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Operated by the convention and visitors bureau, the visitors center in Harpers Ferry draws about 35,000 tourists a year, Gavin said.
“We want to give our visitors the best experience possible when they enter West Virginia,” Christian Asam, president of the nonprofit visitors bureau and an owner of the Bavarian Inn in Shepherdstown, said of the expansion project.
Gavin said the visitors center will remain open throughout the three-phase construction project, which will include extending three sides of the center’s current A-frame structure, located north of Harpers Ferry and Bolivar off U.S. 340.
Gathering under a white canvas tent shaking in a cool breeze, several local and federal officials showed to celebrate the start of an expansion project initiated in 2009. Several officials praised the scenic beauty and the history of the Harpers Ferry area, along with the hospitality of Mountain State residents.
Dennis Frye, a historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, pointed out that the ceremony took place on the same day John Brown launched his famous raid on the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry in 1859. Frye also pointed out that exactly two years after Brown’s raid the first battle of the Civil War in Jefferson County took place on Bolivar Heights, a battlefield looming within eyesight above the visitors center.
“We’re right in the midst of the battlefield,” Frye said. “We’re in the midst of shells, bullets and blood.”
Jefferson County Commissioners Peter Onoszko, Patsy Noland and Jane Tabb attended the ceremony, along with other county officials and officials from Harpers Ferry and Charles Town. (The county’s state legislators were in Charleston attending a special legislative session.)
West Virginia’s senators in Washington attended the occasion, too.
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) was on hand to recognize a project that Gavin said was initially funded by a $250,000 federal spending earmark she acquired as a congresswoman from West Virginia. U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D) also helped the project along the way, including helping Jefferson County acquire the land on which the visitors center lies, Gavin said.
Capito pointed out the importance of tourism to West Virginia’s economy, and talked about her visits to Jefferson County and her work to promote tourism in the state.
“It is, to me, the key to our future success,” she said. “It’s kind of a kept secret in some ways.”
“This is where people come to a West Virginia that in their own minds don’t know exists,” she added. “They know we have the history. They know we have beautiful rural areas. But they don’t know the richness of the tradition and the beauty of the people that live here until they actually come.
“So with the bright smiling faces that we’re going to see here at the visitors center and the visitors, I think the sky’s the limit.”
Manchin recalled a “crazy little trailer” that the visitors center operated from years ago.
“It was the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen,” he said, joshing with the crowd. “This, we thought, would never happen–it’s a natural.”
Offering one of a few home-state historical historical notes, Manchin also said West Virginia supplied more veterans who “fought in more wars” and “shed more blood” in U.S. wars than citizens from any other state in the nation.
“This little state has contributed so much to the country–to the superpower–that we are in the world,” Manchin said. “I want all of the young people and all the young children to know they so should be so proud to be part of a state that helped build a nation, and that’s really what we did.”
“I’m proud of what you’ve done and I’m proud of what you’re going to do,” he added.
Manchin and Capito promised to return to Harpers Ferry next spring to attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the larger and renovated visitors center.
In addition to the $250,000 federal earmark, the visitors center expansion is also funded with help from a $100,000 federal grant from a Washington Heritage Trail program from the Federal Highway Administration. The remaining $400,000 for the project will come from future donations and revenues from state hotel and motel taxes that the county tourism bureau receives, Gavin said.
W. Harley Miller contractors Inc. in Martinsburg is the construction contractor for the project. Michael Mills in Morgantown, is the project’s architect.