ROANOKE   

  

 

Roanoke is a great city for strolling in the downtown area. You can dine in a restaurant at Center in the Square where the waiter (or cook) may walk right out the door to pluck fresh greens or herbs for your inner at a farm stand the restaurant owns, where you can visit the Link Museum to see world famous photographs of trains, or stroll through the growing transportation museum.

Click on these for more information from Jane Ockershausen's Virginia One-Day Trip Book.

Center in the Square and Historic Farmer’s Market

Virginia’s Explore Park

Virginia Museum of Transportation

 

 

 

 

   Center in the Square and Historic Farmer’s Market

Action Around the Square  

 Years ago malls revolutionized suburban shopping; in a similar fashion Roanoke has creatively combined the city's cultural offerings into one exciting location called Center in the Square.  When you add the adjacent Historic Farmer’s Market with its shops, stalls and eateries you have an especially appealing one-stop attraction. The flower and vegetable stands encircle the shops and restaurants. Restaurant chefs sometimes go right out the door for fresh salad and vegetables for your lunch or dinner.

Since Center in the Square opened in 1983, it has been the focal point of Roanoke.  The action even moves out of this world at Hopkins Planetarium, part of the Science Museum of Western Virginia, one of the three museums in the complex.  Regular weekend presentations explore the universe on the 40-foot dome, and other shows such as To Fly and Space Shuttle have extended runs.  On the second Friday of each month there is a live sky-show lecture. 

The Science Museum of Western Virginia has plenty of family appeal with its hands-on exhibits featuring geology, weather and the flora and fauna of Virginia. Anyone who has ever despaired at the often misleading local television weather forecast will enjoy playing anchor at the museum's studio.  A weather map and other props are in place; all you have to supply is the jargon and you're ready to roll tape.  Television is also featured in an exhibit on energy designed to test endurance, not imagination.  You bike your way to fleeting fame;  the faster you pedal, the clearer your screen image becomes.

    There is so much to see, touch and discover you may end up spending more time than you anticipated.  Just don't forget there are two more museums to explore at Center in the Square plus the Mill Mountain Theatre, which offers year-round performances.

You'll learn how the city got its name at the Roanoke Valley Historical Society Museum.  The town was first called Big Lick because animals frequented this part of the Shenandoah Valley for the rich salt deposits.  Following the animals came the Native Americans whose shell beads were called "rawranoke."   The Historical Society has collected more than legends.  Their displays begin with Native American baskets, bowls and beads, then move to the belongings of settlers along the Valley Trail.  Life on the frontier can be better understood after viewing such artifacts as mill equipment, a blacksmith's work table and farm implements.  The turbulent times of the War Between the States and the Reconstruction period are also covered.

From the state of fashion to the state of art, Roanoke is enjoying an active artistic renaissance with galleries proliferating around Center in the Square.   Within the center you'll find the Art Museum of Western Virginia.  Rotating exhibits include nationally and internationally known artists as well as folk art from the southern mountains.  Permanent collections demonstrate American works from the 19th and 20th centuries.  Educational opportunities can be found at Art Venture, a children's center.

    The science museum charges admission, both for the planetarium and for the exhibits.  There is also an admission to the history museum but the art museum is free.  Hours for the Science Museum of Western Virginia, the Art Museum of Western Virginia and the Roanoke Valley Historical Society Museum are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. .(the history museum closes at 4:00 P.M. on weekdays) and Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 P.M.  Only the science museum is open on Monday.

    Across the street from Center in the Square is Studios on the Square, an artists’ cooperative where painters, sculptors, carvers, weavers, potters and others artists produce and sell their work.  Adjacent to the center  is the Historic Farmer’s Market with two main areas of interest: the market building with its specialty shops and ethnic food booths plus colorful street stalls offering local produce. Shops run the gamut from chic, like Wertz’s Country Store with its basement level wine shop, to neighborhood merchants and flower vendors.  Some shops are closed on Sunday.  The Historic Farmer’s Market is open six days a week, year-round.  Be sure to take advantage of the wonderfully diverse restaurants in this area. You can have a world taste tour at Carlos Brazilian International Cuisine (312 Market Street) or the Mediterranean Italian and Continental Cuisine Restaurant (127 Campbell Avenue).  For American fare and hamburgers famous throughout the region try 309 First Street Fine Food & Drink (309 Market Street).  For information on Roanoke attractions call (800) 635-5535.

An elevated pedestrian walkway connects this bustling Market Street area with Roanoke’s “Grand Old Lady,” the newly restored and reopened 19th-century Hotel Roanoke.   Back in 1882, when Roanoke was still Big Lick, a hotel was built on this hill overlooking the community.  The Hotel Roanoke was developed by railroad magnate Frederick J. Kimball.  From the beginning, the hotel’s rooms were full. Of course originally, there were less than three dozen rooms; now there are more than 300.  But many of the hotel’s distinctive touches have remained.  The Tudor facade is still striking and the Czech-made chandeliers that once graced the Crystal Ballroom are now part of the new state-of-the-art conference center.  A $42 million restoration and new construction project was unveiled when the hotel reopened as a Doubletree hotel in 1995.  Even if you don’t stay in this delightful property take the time to stroll through the public rooms or enjoy a meal in the Pine Room or Regency Dining Room.  For information call (800) 222-TREE or (540) 985-5900.

Directions:  From I-95 in the Richmond area, pick up Route 360 west to Burkeville.  Then take Route 460 west to Roanoke.  In Roanoke Route 460 becomes Orange Avenue which intersects with Route 581 south.  Take Route 581 south to the Elm Avenue exit and turn right on Elm.  You can also take I-64 west to I-81 south, near Roanoke take Exit 143 to I-581 and then Exit 6.  Go right two blocks on Elm Avenue and turn right onto Jefferson Street.  Turn right again at Campbell Avenue at Market Square.  A parking deck adjoins Center in the Square.

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Virginia’s Explore Park

Ah, Wilderness!

Virginia’s Explore Park aptly quotes T.S. Eliot, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”  This is indeed what happens when you visit this 1,300-acre frontier living history museum and wilderness park.  Many current area resident’s great-great-grandparents started in Blue Ridge mountain cabins like those you see at this historic park.  Settlers turned the Native American’s “Warriors Path” into a wagon road. 

Horse-drawn wagons carry visitors around this authentic 1790 to 1860 Blue Ridge settlement.  You can also walk the rutted paths and roads stopping at the Hofauger Farm complex of home, barn, shop, garden and orchard.  The German-style barn has a huge threshing area as well as horse stables.  Samuel Hofauger was of German descent, while his wife, Elizabeth Hays, was English.  This farm, where they raised four children, was near Cave Spring in Roanoke County.  Old-fashioned breeds of farm animals fill the pens, graze in the fields and roam the yard and include chickens, geese, pigs and sheep.  Not far from the farm is the one-room Kemp’s Ford Schoolhouse, built around 1860 on the Blackwater River in Franklin County.

Two other public buildings were almost always found in early settlements; they are represented by the 1880 Mountain Union Church, which served as a meeting house for Presbyterians and Lutherans, and the 1790s Brugh Tavern.  This German inn, offering lodging, food and drink, was situated on the Great Wagon Road just north of what is now the city of Roanoke.  Rounding out this recreated community are a blacksmith and wheelwright shop.  Current development plans call for the reconstruction of three additional houses: the 1780 Barnett House; 1840 McClure-Baker House and 1780 Holstine House. If you take a wagon ride you will get a real feeling for why the first shops established on the frontier were blacksmiths and wheelwrights.  The rutted, steep, rocky, muddy roads made travel hazardous.  Wagons frequently lost or damaged their wheels, necessitating repairs.  The expression, “I’ll be there with bells on,” derived from the custom of wagons giving their bells to any wagon that stopped and helped them back on the road.  Thus, if you arrived with bells on your wagon, that usually meant you arrived without misadventure.

Costumed interpreters are on hand at the Hofauger farm and bring frontier days to life. A Native American, on hand at a Tutelo lodge, and a hunter provide different perspectives on living off the land.  Other personalties frequently on hand include a horse-drawn wagon driver and a singing peddler.

Natural history is also part of the story that unfolds here.  Six miles of hiking trails encourage you to explore the dense hardwood forest with its abundant wildflowers and wildlife.  Trails wind through the scenic Roanoke River Gorge with its striking shale cliffs.

Virginia’s Explore Park is open April through October on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.   Before starting out into this woodsy setting, an application of bug spray or insect repellant is a wise precaution.   Admission is charged.  Ongoing special events include blacksmith workshops, wildflower hikes, quilting, Native American craft workshops, historical reenactments, an Appalachian music and craft festival and others; call (540) 427-1800 for details.  Currently under construction are a 1750s fort and an Eastern Woodland village.  Long term plans call for the addition of a North American Wilderness Park Zoo.

There is already a zoo off the Blue Ridge Parkway---the Mill Mountain Zoo just outside Roanoke.  Here you’ll see 45 species of exotic and native animals on a wooded three-acre park.  In addition to wild animals like the Siberian tiger, red pandas and reptiles, there is a children’s contact area where youngsters can interact with goats and small mammals. The zoo is open daily from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. except Christmas Day.  Admission is charged.  You also find the Roanoke Star on top of Mill Mountain.  Shenandoah is an Indian word meaning “daughter of the stars” so it is fitting that this 100-foot-tall star illuminates Roanoke’s nighttime sky.

Directions: Take I-81 to Roanoke, Exit 143, and go 12 miles on I-581/ US Route 220 to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Take the Parkway north for seven miles. Virginia’s Explore Park is at Milepost 115 between Route 220 and Route 24.

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Virginia Museum of Transportation

Hop a Freighter 

 

The aptly chosen home for the Virginia Museum of Transportation is a restored railway freight station that sits beside the tracks of the Norfolk Southern mainline in downtown Roanoke. While most of the rolling stock evoking railroad’s golden age is exhibited outdoors, the complete story of transportation is told inside the station.  Exhibited in the galleries are carriages,  early autos, freight trucks, fire engines and airplanes.

Much of the action is along Antique Auto Alley, where the oldest vehicle is the 1880 “Doctor’s Buggy,” an extended roof rockaway.  The rockaway was an adaption of a traditional coach first done in Long Island, New York around 1830.  Luxury options were available even on the earliest vehicles; this model has windows that open and close all the way around the passenger compartment, as well as window shades for privacy.  Another vintage model is the 1885 stick seat square box buggy, meant for speed.  It’s interesting to learn that when selecting horses for a two- horse team, the important consideration was conformation not color.  The horses needed to be roughly the same age and size so that they pulled the carriage in tandem.

The oldest car in the collection is a 1920 Buick touring car.  David Dunbar Buick founded his motor company in Detroit in 1902 and in the first year 37 vehicles were sold at $850 each.  By 1910, Buick sold 11,000 cars at $1,050 each.  The term touring car was derived from the most common use of cars to get to church and then take a Sunday drive.  Henry Ford manufactured his first car in 1903. The earliest Ford in the collection is the 1924 Model T Chassis Ford; this was the year the company sold its 10 millionth car.   The museum also has a replica of a 1903 Oldsmobile, the first car in the Roanoke Valley.  A wide assortment of trucks, buses and fire equipment is included in the outdoor exhibits. 

One section of the museum is devoted to the railroad.  Exhibits provide nuggets of information like the fact that coal is the commodity most transported by rail across the country. Coal also makes up 80% of all goods that are delivered in Virginia.  The locomotive and rolling stock are exhibited outdoors.  A unique piece is one of the few surviving N&W Dynamometers.  Made in 1919 this car could calibrate data connected with locomotive operation and train haul conditions such as drawbar pull, brake pipe pressure and other precise measurements. A system of up to 20 connections provided a precise analysis of locomotive performance.  There are 18 locomotives, five switcher cars, and an assortment of diverse equipment like an oil car, derrick car, caboose, boxcar and a passenger observation car.  Visitors can climb aboard eight pieces of equipment.

Back inside there’s one more discovery to make and it’s a doozy---though it doesn’t have much to do with transportation.  The museum has an incredibly detailed three-ring circus model complete with crowds, performers and wild animals. The link is the railroad, without which the circus would not have been able to travel swiftly from town to town, garnering the reputation as “the greatest show on earth.”  Between 1872 and 1947, during the heyday of the circus, specially designed railroad cars moved the big top.  In 1872 it took 62 cars to move P.T. Barnum’s Circus.  The circus train peaked in 1947 when Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey used 109 cars to move their extravaganza.  This colorful museum exhibit delights young and old with its amazing detail.  

The Virginia Museum of Transportation is open 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Saturday and NOON to 5:00 P.M. on Sunday.  It is closed on Monday in January and February. 

LATE NEWS:

 "Stitch in Time" Quilt Show Opens October 1, 2004.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation is pleased to present "A Stitch in Time", its first ever exhibit of quilts, created by family members of railroad workers.  The development of the railroad and the communities it created are important to our social history. In those railroad communities there were many artisans and craftsmen that offered auxiliary services to local residents. In the home, self-reliance was a dominant trait. Quilting exemplifies all of the attributes that create that kind of strong
community, the utilitarian function coupled with great skill to create a lasting work of art.

Directions: From I-81 take I-581 into Roanoke.  At Exit 6, take Wells Avenue, make a left on First Street and a right on Shenandoah Avenue.  Take a left onto Fifth Street, then another left onto Norfolk Avenue.  The museum is at 303 Norfolk Avenue.

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STAUNTON    

Locals pronounce it "Stanton" 

Andre Viette Farm & Nursery

Perennially Perfect

Andre Viette felt his family and his flowers would thrive more vigorously in the verdant Blue Ridge Mountains than on Long Island.  New York was where his 16-year-old Swiss immigrant father, Martin, first started growing perennials while working as an apprentice gardener.   Martin established his own nursery in 1929 hybridizing lilacs, phlox and daylilies.  In 1976, Andre established a 200-acre farm and nursery in Fisherville, a small community between Charlottesville and Staunton.  Operating the nursery and farm with his wife Claire and son, Mark, they grow over a million plants a year and are visited by approximately 15,000 garden lovers annually.

The nursery display gardens feature over 1,000 varieties of daylilies with extensive collections of peonies, oriental poppies and iris.  It is a splendid sight to see fields of colorful flowers.  Specialty gardens have well-labeled rare and unusual perennials.

Andre Viette, a world-renown horticulturalist who serves on the board of the American Horticulture Society, has a weekly Saturday morning radio show currently heard on over twenty stations from 8:00 to 11:00 A.M.  Listeners can call in with gardening questions for Andre and his co-host Jim Britt.  There are lots of call since, as surveys indicate, about 75% of all households in the country engaged in indoor or outdoor gardening.

The garden center is open at no charge April through October on Monday through Saturday from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. and Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 P.M.  A mail order catalog is available for a nominal fee by calling (540) 943-2315. 

Directions: From I-64 (if you are traveling west from the Richmond area), take Exit 91 north. You will turn right onto Route 608, them make a left turn and head west on Route 250.  After you go under a train overpass you will turn right onto Route 608 (there was a little jog onto Rte. 250, but this puts you back onto Long Meadow Road).  The nursery is 2 ½ miles on the left.  From I-81 traveling south, take Exit 225 and turn left onto Route 275, which will turn into Route 254 East.  Then make a right turn on Route 608.  The nursery is 2 ½ miles on the right.  Traveling north on I-81, take Exit 221, turn right and go east on I-64, then follow directions above.

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Museum of American Frontier Culture

Cultivate America’s Roots

Visitors would have a better idea of the breath and scope of this fascinating 78-acre living history park if it was called “Roots” of America’s Frontier Culture.  Farmsteads have been rebuilt here in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley with buildings transported from settler’s homelands in Germany, Northern Ireland and England.  A fourth farmstead illustrates how these cultures met and merged by the 19th century.

These are not reconstructions or recreations, but actual farms with their original cluster of house and farm buildings and to the extent possible appropriate elements of the landscape.  Living history brings to life the culture and lifestyle settlers brought to America when they immigrated in the 18th century.  Authentically clad interpreters go about their farm work as they would have done in the old country.

After an informative 15-minute video explaining the background of the Museum of American Frontier Culture which opened in 1988, you’ll follow a sandy country lane to the 1688 half-timbered German farmhouse transported from Hordt in the Rhineland-Palatinate.  In addition to the main house, there is a barn with a wagon-shed addition and a tobacco barn.  The house and barn are both built in the fachwerk style, with a timber frame filled-in with wattle and daub panels.  These panels are formed by weaving strips of wood, then covering the strips with a mix of clay, sand, lime and straw.  An element of the German barn that was incorporated into the design of frontier farms was the central entry double door with its threshing bay flanked by animal pens often with pigs.  Germans introduced pork and smoked meats to the frontier diet as well as sauerkraut.  Furnishings in the front parlor, small bed chamber, kitchen and hall reflect the 1750s, the first half of the 18th century was the time of the heaviest German immigration to this part of Virginia.  Influences from other countries that made their way to western Germany can be seen, like the curtains of Egyptian cotton and the Roman hearth.  Garden plots beside the buildings are enclosed in the traditional wattle and wooden picket fences. 

The path to the past next leads visitors to the Scotch-Irish (Ulster) farm, which was originally built in the early 19th century near the village of Drumquin.  The house and outbuildings were presented by the Ulster-American Folk Park, whose director Eric Montgomery was one of the visionaries who help found this living history museum. Specialists from Northern Ireland assisted in the reconstruction and two Irish thatchers completed the roof using a pattern common in County Tyrone.  The farm has three buildings the two-room house with a barn addition, a small outbuilding in front of the house and a long four-room outbuilding at the end of the house.  They all have whitewashed sandstone walls.  Floors are made of blue clay and flagstone.  One part of the longer outbuilding was used as a turf shed to store the peat used in Ireland for fuel.  In the kitchen, which also served as the main living area, the parents’ bed was located in the “outshot” near the fireplace.  Notice the “creepy stools,” so called because they were set low to avoid the peat smoke. Those sitting on these low stools would gradually move them closer and closer to the warm stove.  The second room was used for spinning, weaving, churning and other household chores as well as providing additional sleeping quarters.  Visitors learn that colcannon is virtually the national dish in Northern Ireland---it’s mashed potatoes, scallions, milk, butter and kale.  Hedgerows and stone walls enclose this farmstead.  Bringing to life the work of the farmers who grew flax is complemented by the 18th century blacksmith forge, the first trade building at the museum.

Split-rail fences line the footpath that crosses a spring-fed creek delivering visitors to yet another country.  This farm reveals our English heritage.  Here you’ll find outbuildings from a West Sussex farm once situated on the outskirts of Petworth.  There is also a farmhouse from Worcestershire near the village of Hartlebury in the West Midlands.  The lifestyle of the 17th century yeoman farmer is captured at the English farmstead.  There are two 17th century barns, a mid-17th century house and a late-18th century cattle shed all built using the English timber-framed construction.  All of these were moved from the Garlands’ Sussex farm, but the main house was protected by English preservation laws and was not allowed to be moved out of England.  In its place is the Worcesterhire House, circa 1630, which was dissembled before the new preservation law became operational and so is likely the last historic dwelling that will be permitted to leave England.  The position of the Petworth farmhouse is marked by a stone foundation and partial framework.  The Worcestershire house is located in a separate area on the English exhibit site. Furnishings in the house are accurate reproduction pieces based on original 17th century probate inventories from this house and neighboring yeoman-class houses.  As part of the museum’s foodways program authentic English dishes are prepared in the kitchen using brass cookware. There is a wooden trestle table where a great deal of the food preparation was done. The carved wooden table in the hall was where the family ate their meals. Notice the pond near the wagon shed, this was a frequent placement so that the wagons could be driven into the water to keep the wheels swollen and tight.  The design of the English cattle shed and the later American smoke house both utilized a wooden frame construction with a hip-roof.

The Appalachian farm from Botetourt County southwest of Staunton reveals the synthesis of these Europeans traditions brought by the early settlers.  John Barger settled in Virginia in 1832 and built his farmhouse soon after.  He eventually built two barns and enlarged his house---all of these as well as additional outbuildings are part of the American farm.  The oldest buildings use the European style log construction while later additions are more varied, like the stone masonry of the spring house and the wood framing for the square frame smokehouse.  A variety of fencing is also seen on this farm: board fencing, picket fencing and split-rail fences.  Meal preparation, field work and household chores all remind visitors of a vanished era. 

The Museum of American Frontier Culture is open daily 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.  Hours from December through mid-March are 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.  It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.   Be sure to wear walking shoes and remember you will be outside a good portion of the time so dress appropriately.  Many special programs are conducted by museum staff, some are held in the Octagonal Barn Activities Center.  This 1915 barn is one of only two octagonal barns in the state.  Before leaving be sure to stop at the Museum Store where they have a wide selection of handcrafted items.  For a schedule of special events call (540) 332-7850.  The highly popular Holiday Lantern Tours in December require advance reservations.

Directions: From I-81 take Exit 222, Route 250 west, just off the interstate you will see the entrance to the Museum of American Frontier Culture on your left.  If you come in on I-64, head north on I-81 for one exit. 

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The Woodrow Wilson Birthplace and Museum

Family Manse

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton's Presbyterian manse on December 28, 1856 "at 12 3/4 o'clock at night," as his proud father recorded in the family Bible.  The Bible is on display at his birthplace. When the Reverend Joseph Wilson accepted a call to be minister of the Staunton Presbyterian Church, he and his wife, Jessie Woodrow, and their daughters, Marion and Annie, moved into the manse.

The 12-room Greek Revival style brick house was less than ten years old when the Wilsons arrived in March 1855.  The house was built for Mr. Wilson's predecessor, the Reverend Benjamin Mosby Smith.  "The congregation has contracted to have a house built for Mr. Smith, " it was recorded, "which it is said will be the best house in Staunton when it is finished.  The lot on which it is to be built is one of the most beautiful situations in Staunton..."  The total cost of construction was about $4,000.  Indicating how little some things have changed over the years, there is a notation in Mr. Smith's diary about his dissatisfaction with the poor work being done by the paperhanger.  The Reverend dismissed him and, with his wife's help, finished wallpapering the parlor and dining room himself.

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