Storer College — Education and Memory at Harpers Ferry
Historical feature • Updated October 12, 2026
Storer operated in Harpers Ferry from 1867 until 1955, opening educational opportunities for African Americans in West Virginia. Its educational history belongs alongside the town’s better-known Civil War history.
The National Park Service preserves the college’s history through places, collections and recorded alumni experiences. Oral histories restore the people behind the buildings: students describing their education, relationships and daily lives. Those accounts give the closed institution a human presence that a founding and closing date alone cannot provide.