The Roanoke Valley in the 1950s

The Roanoke Valley in the 1950s PDF

Author: Nelson Harris

Publisher: History Press

Published: 2024-05-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781467155687

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Drag racing at Starkey, the debut of television, mass polio vaccinations, college football games at Victory Stadium, Roanoke's Diamond Jubilee, Salem's Sesquicentennial, and Vinton's Dogwood Festival American Viscose closed, the N&W Railway switched to diesel and the General Electric plant opened. The Roanoke Valley welcomed the Children's Zoo on Mill Mountain and the Miss Virginia Pageant to Hotel Roanoke. From a new terminal at Woodrum Field to the erection of Cave Spring High School, municipal projects reflected the economic boom times. Sears Town, Miller & Rhoads, the viaduct, and a new main library altered downtown Roanoke. WDBJ and WSLS television stations went on the air, premiering local programs such as Saturday Session, Top O' the Mornin', and Uncle Looney. The nation's top entertainers performed at the American Theatre, Lakeside, and the American Legion Auditorium. The valley's arts scene produced the Roanoke Fine Arts Center, Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, and Showtimers. Minor league baseball teams played to large crowds in the stands at Maher Field, Municipal Field and Springwood Park. Black leaders campaigned for equal pay, desegregation, and neighborhood equity. By searching every edition of the Roanoke Times and the Roanoke Tribune from January 1950 through December 1959, local historian Nelson Harris documents the decade's local events in sports, business, crime, arts, entertainment, religion, civil rights, politics, individual achievements, and healthcare.

Hidden History of Roanoke

Hidden History of Roanoke PDF

Author: Nelson Harris

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2013-08-06

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1625840632

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Author Nelson Harris delves into the annals of history to uncover these marvelous and mostly unknown stories of the Star City of the South. How did a Roanoke neighbor's secret upend North Carolina politics and why did a weeding scandal in Big Lick make front-page headlines in New York? These questions and many more are answered in this exciting volume of hidden stories and forgotten tales from the Star City. Discover why a Roanoker was found frozen in the North Atlantic and what Mother's Day crime and trial shocked the city in 1949. Meet the Black Cardinals, a semi-pro African American baseball team that played in the 1930s and '40s, and find out how a fistfight at Shenandoah Life helped save the company.

If Trouble Don't Kill Me

If Trouble Don't Kill Me PDF

Author: Ralph Berrier

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2010-08-10

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0307463087

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Making moonshine, working blue-collar jobs, picking fights in bars, chasing women, and living hardscrabble lives . . . Clayton and Saford Hall were born in the backwoods of Virginia in 1919, in a place known as The Hollow. Incredibly, they became legends in their day, rising from mountain-bred poverty to pickin’ and yodelin’ all over the airwaves of the South in the 1930s and 1940s, opening shows for the Carter Family, Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, and even playing the most coveted stage of all: the Grand Ole Opry. They accomplished a lifetime’s worth of achievements in less than five years—and left behind only a few records to document their existence. Fortunately, Ralph Berrier, Jr., the grandson of Clayton Hall and a reporter for the Roanoke Times, brings us their full story for the first time in IF TROUBLE DON'T KILL ME. He documents how the twins’ music spread like wildfire when they moved from The Hollow to Roanoke at age twenty, and how their popularity was inflamed by their onstage zaniness, their roguish offstage shenanigans, and, above all, their ability to play old-time country music. But just as they arrived on the brink of major fame, World War II dashed their dreams. Berrier follows the Hall twins as they travel overseas, leaving behind their beloved music, and are thrust into the cauldron of a war that reshaped their lives and destinies. Through the brothers’ experiences, the story of World War II unfolds—Saford fought from the shores of North Africa to Sicily and Europe and finally into Germany; Clayton fought the Japanese in the brutal Pacific theater until the savage, final battle on Okinawa. They returned home after the war to find that the world had changed, music had changed . . . and they had, too. IF TROUBLE DON'T KILL ME paints a loving portrait of a vanishing yet exalted southern culture, shows us the devastating consequences of war, and allows us to experience the mountain voices that not only influenced the history of music but that also shaped the landscape of America.

We Face the Dawn

We Face the Dawn PDF

Author: Margaret Edds

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0813940451

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The decisive victories in the fight for racial equality in America were not easily won, much less inevitable; they were achieved through carefully conceived strategy and the work of tireless individuals dedicated to this most urgent struggle. In We Face the Dawn, Margaret Edds tells the gripping story of how the South's most significant grassroots legal team challenged the barriers of racial segregation in mid-century America. Virginians Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson initiated and argued one of the five cases that combined into the landmark Brown v. Board of Education, but their influence extends far beyond that momentous ruling. They were part of a small brotherhood, headed by social-justice pioneer Thurgood Marshall and united largely through the Howard Law School, who conceived and executed the NAACP’s assault on racial segregation in education, transportation, housing, and voting. Hill and Robinson’s work served as a model for southern states and an essential underpinning for Brown. When the Virginia General Assembly retaliated with laws designed to disbar the two lawyers and discredit the NAACP, they defiantly carried the fight to the United States Supreme Court and won. At a time when numerous schools have resegregated and the prospects of many minority children appear bleak, Hill and Robinson’s remarkably effective campaign against various forms of racial segregation can inspire a new generation to embrace educational opportunity as the birthright of every American child.

History of Back Creek, A: Bent Mountain, Poages Mill, Cave Spring and Starkey

History of Back Creek, A: Bent Mountain, Poages Mill, Cave Spring and Starkey PDF

Author: Nelson Harris

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 1

ISBN-13: 1625859708

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"Since Europeans first settled along the banks of Back Creek in the 1740s, southwest Roanoke County's history has been as fluid as the creek itself. The once dense forest with log cabins gave way to the sprawling suburbs of the present. The colonial-era Trader's Path that directed Scots-Irish homesteaders, the growth of the apple industry in Bent Mountain after the Civil War, a state highway built by convicts during the Depression and Cave Spring becoming a modern commercial center have shaped the region. The changing picture of daily life in Back Creek spanning two centuries emerges in stories of one-room schoolhouses, doctors on horseback, country stores, local baseball and NASCAR races at Starkey. Local historian Nelson Harris details the eclectic history of the area." -- Page [4] of cover.

A Place Apart

A Place Apart PDF

Author: Helen R. Prillaman

Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com

Published: 2009-06

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 0806347066

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The Williamson Road area, which was annexed by the city of Roanoke in 1949, was originally a part of Botetourt County and thereafter of the northern part of Roanoke County. "A Place Apart" traces the history, places, and families of the Williamson Road. The book begins with various sketches of Roanoke Valley pioneers and early land owners. The second part of the volume continues with sketches of families that arrived during the late 18th or early 19th century, including Barren, Bushong, Campbell, Cannaday, Fellers, Garst, Harshbarger, Huntingdon, Nelms, Nininger, Oliver, Petty, Read, Rudd, Stokes, Watts, and Williamson. Community leaders associated with the Roanoke Valley's recent history are treated elsewhere in the book.

Preservation Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Sites List:

Preservation Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Sites List: PDF

Author: Justin Sarafin, Preservation Virginia

Publisher: Preservation Virginia

Published: 2014-12-23

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13:

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The following compilation of Most Endangered Historic Sites listings is composed of the first two years of the program (2000 and 2002) when it was administered (bi-annually) by the Preservation Alliance of Virginia, and following the merger of that organization with Preservation Virginia in 2004, annual lists from 2005 to the present. The following updates and status reports for each listing are believed to be current as of the posting of this document in August 2014. Where available, pertinent links to news stories and reports are included to help contextualize listings but are in no way exhaustive. Each listing has also been “graded” into four categories as a quick way to reference its current status. While the particulars of each site or issue are unique and nuanced, the following four categorizations can be used to approximately characterize each listing: SAVED: The immediate threat to a resource has been overcome and is not likely to reappear in the foreseeable future LOST: The resource has been demolished or its integrity altered enough to jeopardize its register eligibility STILL ENDANGERED: The threat present at the time of listing is still active, unresolved, and/or could likely reappear in the foreseeable future WATCH LIST: The resource is not currently, actively endangered but may still face threats and should continue to be monitored

Aviation in Roanoke

Aviation in Roanoke PDF

Author: Marshall Harris and Nelson Harris

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1467121606

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In 1910, an awestruck crowd at the Roanoke Fair got its first glimpse of powered flight when a Curtiss biplane soared overhead. Within the next decade, gliders were lifting off from hills in South Roanoke and cow pastures were being converted into airstrips. Once Roanoke Municipal Airport was developed in 1929, earlier local airfields such as Cook, Trout, and Horton Fields were rendered inactive. Then in 1941, when--with federal assistance-- the municipal airport became Woodrum Field, the region's air travel transitioned into the modern era and brought services from major airlines to the area. Roanoke's aviation reputation continued to grow when the city played a critical role in military air travel and training during World War II, leading its airport to become one of the busiest on the East Coast. Aviation in Roanoke tells the stories of early airfields, the growth and transformation of Woodrum Field, and the adventures of Roanoke's aviation pioneers.