A Wild West Town in Virginia’s Blue Ridge… During the 1880’s, the new city of Roanoke attracted a large and diverse workforce and a multitude of merchants and investors. But like the western cow towns and mining camps of the same period, the city also attracted prostitutes, professional gamblers, charlatans, and common thieves. By the […]

Park Ranger Danny Martin tells the story of how a land grant from the King of England led to the transformation of a wooded wilderness to a thriving mining boom-town. […]