An iron forge was established at Benwood near the Ohio river and Wheeling/Ohio County border in 1850, and that industrial area would develop following the Civil War. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached the Ohio River when two construction crews met at Rosbys Rock in Marshall County about five miles from Moundsville on December 24, 1852. In 1857, the railroad first crossed the Ohio river downstream, near Parkersburg. Although both towns and the railroad proposed a bridge linking Benwood and Bellaire, Ohio long before, litigation by the pre-existing ferry company as well as the Civil War discussed below, meant the bridge was not completed until 1870, although refurbished, the B & O Railroad Viaduct remains in use today and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.