After the Civil War, Berkeley Springs was divided between two competing economic forces as hotels and bathhouses clustered around the warm mineral springs while DeFord's First National Tannery spread into nearby downtown blocks on Washington St. Bark, especially oak, was essential to tanning hides, and thousands of pounds were peeled, hauled into town, and sold each May by country people, then stored in sheds covering a couple of blocks. In 1888, a dispute over bark led to the county's first murder in a decade. The tannery had a complicated place in Morgan County life, providing jobs, taking on community tasks, and giving generously to churches and civic causes. Its owner, Benjamin DeFord, actively supported bringing a spur of the B&O railroad directly into town, which occurred in 1885, and in 1886 leather from DeFord's in Berkeley Springs won first place at the World Exposition in New Orleans. As the tannery expanded dramatically in the 1880s and Berkeley Springs again became a fashionable resort, smells from the tanning process, pollution in Warm Springs Run, and the unsightly overflow of bark sheds and the state's tallest smokestack turned public opinion against it. Ironically, the railroad DeFord had championed helped end the tannery business by making it easier to transport bark elsewhere. The tannery closed in 1898, and over the following decade its buildings were damaged by fire or razed, opening downtown blocks for other commercial development.
