Ray Swick
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 136
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Images of America: Blennerhassett Island reveals for the first time the pictorial past of the Ohio River's most famous island. Located one-and-a-half miles west of Parkersburg, West Virginia, it sprang into national fame two centuries ago as the headquarters of Aaron Burr's 1806-1807 conspiracy to create an empire in the Southwest. The island also was renowned as the site of the American West's most beautiful home: the legendary Blennerhassett Mansion, completed in 1800 only to be destroyed by fire 11 years later. This volume's more than 200 fascinating pictures--most never published before--will take the reader on an exciting adventure through time, beginning with the island's glamorous Burr/Blennerhassett years; through its 19th century steamboat era; and into the 20th century, when it became the playground of the Mid-Ohio Valley. The final images portray the 1980 creation of Blennerhassett Island as a popular West Virginia state park with the reconstructed Blennerhassett Mansion as its centerpiece.