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Roanoke (The Star City of the South) is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The City of Roanoke is adjacent to the city of Salem and the town of Vinton and is otherwise surrounded by, but politically separate from, Roanoke County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 94,911. By 2006, the city's population is estimated to be 92,328; if the population trends of the past six years continue, the city will have a smaller population than Roanoke County in the 2010 census. The United States Census Bureau includes in Roanoke's metropolitan area the counties of Botetourt, Franklin, Craig and Roanoke, and the cities of Salem and Roanoke. The metropolitan area's population in the past three censuses has been reported to be:
Please note that the figures through 2000 do not include Franklin County (50,345 est. 2005 population) and Craig County (5,154 est. 2005 population) which were recently added to the Roanoke MSA, which is the fourth largest in Virginia and the largest outside of the eastern half of the state.
History
IncorporationThe town of Big Lick was established in 1852 and chartered in 1874. It was named for a large outcropping of salt which drew the wildlife to the site near the Roanoke River.[1] It became the town of Roanoke in 1882 and was chartered as the independent city of Roanoke in 1884. The name Roanoke is said to have originated from an Algonquin word for shell "money",[2] but the town was almost certainly renamed for the river that bisected it and the county that had surrounded it since 1838.[3] It grew frequently through annexation through the middle of the 20th century.[4] However, the last annexation was in 1976 and Virginia cities are currently prohibited from annexing land from adjacent counties. Its location in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the middle of the Roanoke Valley between Maryland and Tennessee, made it the transportation hub of western Virginia and contributed to its rapid growth. Colonial influenceDuring colonial times the site of Roanoke was an important hub of trails and roads. The Great Wagon Road, one of the most heavily travelled roads of 18th century America, ran from Philadelphia through the Shenandoah Valley to the future site of the City of Roanoke, where the Roanoke River passed through the Blue Ridge. The Roanoke Gap proved a useful route for immigrants to settle the Carolina Piedmont region. At Roanoke Gap, another branch of the Great Wagon Road, the Wilderness Road, continued southwest to Tennessee and Kentucky. Railroads and coalIn the 1850s, Big Lick became a stop on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) which linked Lynchburg with Bristol on the Virginia-Tennessee border. After the American Civil War (1861-1865), William Mahone, a civil engineer and hero of the Battle of the Crater, was the driving force in the linkage of 3 railroads, including the V&T, across the southern tier of Virginia to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. However, the Financial Panic of 1873 wrecked the AM&O's finances. After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&O was purchased by E.W. Clark and Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad then under construction up the valley from Hagerstown, Maryland. The AM&O was renamed Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W). Frederick J. Kimball, a civil engineer and partner in the Clark firm, headed the new line and the new Shenandoah Valley Railroad. For the junction for the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk and Western roads, Kimball and his board of directors selected the small Virginia village called Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. Although the grateful citizens offered to rename their town "Kimball", on his suggestion, they agreed to go with Roanoke after the river. As the N&W brought people and jobs, the Town of Roanoke quickly became an independent city in 1884. In fact, Roanoke became a city so quickly that it earned the nickname "Magic City." Kimball, whose interest in geology was responsible for the opening of the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia, pushed N&W lines through the wilds of West Virginia, north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, and south to Durham, North Carolina and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This gave the railroad the route structure it was to use for more than 60 years. The Virginian Railway (VGN), an engineering marvel of its day, was conceived and built by William Nelson Page and Henry Huttleston Rogers. Following the Roanoke River, the VGN was built through the City of Roanoke early in the 20th century. It was merged with the N&W in 1959. The opening of the coalfields made N&W prosperous and Pocahontas bituminous coal world-famous. Transported by the N&W and neighboring Virginian Railway (VGN), it fueled half the world's navies and today stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe. The N&W was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house. It was Norfolk & Western's Roanoke Shops, that made the company known industry-wide for its excellence in steam power. The Roanoke Shops, with its workforce of thousands, is where the famed classes A, J, and Y6 locomotives were designed, built, and maintained, and new steam locomotives were built there until 1953, long after diesel-electric had emerged as the motive power of choice for most North American railroads. Around 1960, N&W was the last major railroad in the United States to convert from steam to diesel motive power. The presence of the railroad also made Roanoke attractive to manufacturers. American Viscose opened a large rayon plant in Southeast Roanoke in October 1917.[5] This plant closed in 1958, leaving 5,000 workers unemployed which was soon followed by the 2,000 workers laid off when N&W converted to diesel.[6] Cultural hubToday, Roanoke is known for its Chili Cook-Off, Local Colors Festival, Henry Street Festival, Strawberry Festival, and the large red, white, and blue illuminated Mill Mountain Star on Mill Mountain, which is visible from many points in the city and surrounding valley. Roanoke also plays host to Festival in the Park, an annual festival which is used to "To enhance and promote the visual and performing arts and sports activities in the Roanoke Valley and surrounding areas, to generate a positive economic impact on the Valley, and to fund an Arts Scholarship Program." Arts, History & Culture in Roanoke
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