Bridgeport, West Virginia

Bridgeport is a city in Harrison County, West Virginia. The population was 7,306 at the 2000 census.

The town of Bridgeport had its beginning in pre-Revolutionary War times. In 1764, John Simpson entered the area and gave his name to Simpson Creek.

Bridgeport was chartered in 1816. When the town was incorporated in 1887, it established the office of mayor and town council. The city currently employs a City Manager. Bridgeport is home to Meadowbrook Mall, a 100-store regional shopping complex serving central West Virginia.

History

When John Simpson entered the Bridgeport area in 1764, he was attracted by the plentiful supply of fur-bearing animals. The men to follow him were also trappers and the fur trade was the first business in what is now Bridgeport. As the settlers came and cleared land, timber was sold, and the lumber trade became another area business.

The first mill of which there is official record is the Bridgeport or Johnson Mill, which Harvey W. Harmer describes as the first mill in Bridgeport in his Old Grist Mills of Harrison County. This gristmill was constructed by James Anderson sometime between 1771 and 1787 on Simpson Creek.

In the 19th century, farming was the main livelihood, and the stores in town were mostly general stores designed to serve the area farmers. The town also had a blacksmith and a barber (a man born in slavery), several mills, and two hotels. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran through Bridgeport beginning in 1856, eliminating the need for area cattleman to drive their livestock all the way to Baltimore. 

They instead drove their herds into Bridgeport to the stock pens at the railroad depot. The stockyards remained until the mid 1970s. Cattle, sheep, hogs, and even turkeys were driven into Bridgeport from area farms to be sold here or driven on to market.

The Bridgeport Lamp Chimney Company was succeeded by the Master Glass Company. The Master Glass Company, a marble factory, moved to Bridgeport in 1941 and in 1950 took over the assets of the Akro-Agate Marble Company of Clarksburg. The company manufactured "glass balls for industrial use, colored signal lenses, toy marbles, glass ball reflectors used in highway signs and guard rail posts, and other products for various industrial uses." 

The company ceased operations in 1973, and the City of Bridgeport bought the property. The building has been torn down, and the former site of the tannery, lamp chimney factory, and marble factory is now a parking lot for the Benedum Civic Center.

Bridgeport Landmarks

Simpson Creek Baptist Church is recognized as the oldest Baptist church in West Virginia by the West Virginia Baptist Convention and is also generally accepted as being the oldest Protestant church west of the Allegheny Mountains. The first formal records of the church are dated 1774.