The official opening of the new version of the Webster Springs, West Virginia boardwalk will take place in the spring.
David Gillespie was too young to remember seeing the historic boardwalk that snaked along the Back Fork of the Elk River near his Webster Springs, West Virginia home. But almost 80 years later, the retired university librarian has devoted five years and a pile of money to bring that boardwalk back.
“I want to give something back to local history,” says Gillespie, 80, who returned to Webster Springs after retiring in 2013. “But no, I have no memories of the boardwalk. My older sister remembers walking it to Sunday school and she is excited I’m rebuilding it.”
The three-quarter-mile boardwalk was built along the steep bank of the Back Fork in 1875 by retired Confederate army Captain Benjamin Conrad to spare his gristmill customers a slog over a muddy road. With sweeping views of the river, the boardwalk became a popular venue for strolling and acquired the nickname “Lovers Lane.” It was featured on numerous post cards and became the site of wedding ceremonies.
The boardwalk was rebuilt by the city in the 1890s. Webster Springs had emerged as a mineral springs resort with six hotels catering to guests from the lowlands seeking health through drinking or soaking in the town’s salt sulfur waters. But by 1940, Webster Springs’ era as a spa town was ending. The Lovers Lane boardwalk began to sag and was torn down.
“I’d been gone 50 years when I returned to Webster Springs and started buying parcels of land along the river where the original boardwalk was located,” Gillespie says. “I bought the first and had to wait two years to buy another and ended up getting a 10-year lease on the last parcel. Then I started clearing brush from the riverbank so I could see the river.”
Gillespie started work on the boardwalk in September 2017 as a solo project before discovering he was in over his head.
“The first two sections of boardwalk I built I had to pull out and start over again,” he says.
Since then, he’s hired a crew of five to build and secure the four-foot wide boardwalk to the steep slope. At some particularly steep sections with drop-offs of 15 feet or more, the work crew used climbing harnesses while building foundation piers and placing support posts. Unlike the two previous versions of the boardwalk, Gillespie equipped his with handrails, which had to be specially shaped to adjust for curves and elevation changes.
The walkway includes three small rain shelters as well as angler access to the Back Fork. Swinging bridges near each end of the boardwalk connect with a trail on the other side of creek, creating a two-mile loop hike. Gillespie is placing interpretive signs along the way to tell the story of past businesses and current natural life.
“People are already using it,” Gillespie says.
Although the project is mainly funded by Gillespie, nearly 60 donors have contributed, including descendants of Capt. Conrad. Gillespie has minted a boardwalk coin as part of a fundraising effort. An opening celebration for the boardwalk will be held in the spring.
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The story above appears in our Jan./Feb. 2019 issue.
