The Colonial Era

The Appalachian Mountains

The Blue Ridge Mountains

The French and Indian War (French: Guerre de la Conquête) was a war fought in America
between 1754 and 1763. The name French and Indian War refers to the two main enemies of 
The British , which were The Royal French forces allied with various Indian tribes.
Andrew Lewis of Salem was appointed to oversee the building of a fort to protect the area from Indian attacks.
Supplies were stockpiled in the valley at the base of the mountain at Evans Mill on the Roanoke River.
In 1756, forts were built across the frontier including Fort Lewis in Salem.
Colonel George Washington followed the road from Hollins to Salem while inspecting the fort system and stayed at Evans Mill.
William Fleming was commissioned as an ensign in George Washington's Virginia Regiment, and he served as a surgeon in the Anglo-Cherokee War.
In 1760, Cherokees penetrated into the valley settlement as far as Big Lick according to the papers of John Randolph of  Roanoke.

Troops began to rendezvous at Fort Lewis. After The Treaty of Paris was concluded in 1763,  which officially ended the war, the worst Indian attacks in the valley began to happen.
Hostilities ceased when a peace treaty was signed with the Delaware and Shawnee tribes and rescued captives returned to Fort Pitt.

The American Revolution

Virginia played a prominent role in the War. The State provided the leadership as well as the stage for the most important military events.
Revolutionary sentiment first began appearing in Virginia shortly after the prior war had ended in 1763.
Virginians clashed against the British as Patrick Henry first came to prominence and declared King George III to be  a tyrant.
“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” was the sentence delivered at Richmond’s St. John’s Church. The Speech inspired the House of Burgesses to pass a resolution
to deliver Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War in 1775.
One year later, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress.
Little fighting occurred in Virginia for the first 5 years of the conflict. In 1781, The French Fleet sailed  from the West Indies to block British reinforcements in the "Battle of the Capes," while George Washington and Count Rochambeau marched the American and French armies from New York to Virginia.
General Washington made life unbearable for the British troops with three solid weeks of shelling.
Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, surrendered on October 19, 1781, thus ending the disastrous British southern campaign.
The battle of  Yorktown effectively ended the Revolutionary War with Great Britain.

Virginia’s state capital was moved to Richmond from Williamsburg during the War for Independence.
After The Revolution times were difficult in The Roanoke Valley. Residents paid their taxes in deerskins and hemp. The Roanoke Valley was an agricultural community with hemp being the main cash crop. Mills were established along the creeks, and more settlers migrated from the north and the east.

The township of Salem was established in 1806.
Salem became the county seat for Roanoke County, Virginia.

The War & Reconstruction

The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was a time of extravagant displays of wealth and excess by America's upper-classes in post-Reconstruction times.
The term "Gilded Age" was coined in 1873 by the American author Mark Twain.
Businessmen created industrial towns and cities during this time. In 1881, The Old Virgina & Tennessee Railroad was purchased by a banking concern from Philadelphia and renamed the Norfolk & Western.
The same corporation was building a Shenandoah line and planned to connect the two railroads. At the junction, railroad shops, office buildings, and a grand hotel would be built.
The railroad financiers and officials awarded the location of the terminal to the small town of Big Lick, and the name of the town was changed to Roanoke in 1882.

The explosive growth of Roanoke which followed seemed like "magic". Roanoke was a wide open town in those days, and 'saloons' ran almost the entire length of Salem Avenue.
In 1884, The Legislature of Virginia granted a charter to The City of Roanoke.
In 1885, the first telephones were installed, and The Roanoke Times printed its first edition in 1886. Roanoke's first Downtown Market Building was constructed the same year.

The Gilded Age intellectuals argued Darwin's theories should be applied to civilized society.

The Big Snow of 1890 ended Roanoke's original "boom" days. Thirty -six inches of snow fell in the valley between December 16th and 17th and the snow caused much damage.

The Republic