In 1863, the men of Co. A, 11th West Virginia Infantry (US), constructed Fort Boreman to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the vital east-west line linking the Atlantic coast with the American interior and carrying military supplies and U.S. Army troops. Because Confederate attacks could strike anywhere along the railroad’s hundreds of miles of track, Federal authorities eventually built a series of blockhouses and fortifications to defend the line, its rail yards, and its bridges. On August 21, 1863, Col. Daniel Frost of the 11th West Virginia Infantry took formal possession of Fort Boreman, which was named for West Virginia’s first governor, Arthur I. Boreman. Although Frost declared the fort completed and ready for heavy artillery in September, work continued into November, including huts for winter quarters. For the rest of the war, several artillery units manned the fort in succession, but its guns were used only for visiting dignitaries and special occasions such as the Fourth of July, never in combat. After the war, the fort was razed and the quarters were burned. Arthur I. Boreman, a prominent Parkersburg resident born in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, on July 24, 1823, moved as a child to Middlebourne, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1845, practiced in Parkersburg, and held many political offices. He was elected in 1855 to the first of those offices, presided over the Second Wheeling Convention in June-August 1861, later served as a circuit court judge in Parkersburg, became West Virginia’s first governor from 1863 to 1869, and served as a U.S. Senator from West Virginia from 1868 to 1875. He died in Parkersburg on April 19, 1896.