On the night of March 27, 1858, a fire utterly devastated the town of West Union. At the time, many of the citizens were attending the U.S. court at Clarksburg, and so were not available for fire suppression efforts. The fire originated in an upper room of the residence of Lathrop Russell Charter. The flames spread quickly to other buildings: first, a large hotel and store room belonging to James A. Foley. Next came the residence of Ethelbert Bond and a storehouse belonging to Arthur Ingram. Other buildings followed and the next morning the entire settlement appeared a "mass of smoldering ruins". The Parkersburg and Grafton branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had just been completed, however, and the town was able to revive economically and structurally fairly quickly.