Page 21 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

independent government exist in a municipality originally planned and managed
entirely by a single industry.

One of the main consequences of the syndrome in modern “boom towns” is the
occurrence of the same variety of “value conflicts” between natives and newcomers
seen in early Roanoke. For example, many of the city’s new residents, like their
contemporary counterparts, also tended to arrive from established urban areas and
expected public services (schools, parks, paved roads, etc.) locals had not been
providing. Newcomers in Roanoke also usually resided in rental housing and paid no
property taxes, and as a result, their requests likewise tended to generate resentment
from natives. Moreover, since the long-term status of the town was unclear, bonds
were risky and locals were hesitant to invest “their” municipal funds in “extravagant”
improvements that could easily become unnecessary.

Since new citizens and long-time residents usually also had differing social, political,
economic, and religious values, they likewise tended to “feel alienated and weary of
each others intentions.” Many of Roanoke’s new residents similarly interpreted the
place as only a temporary home, and as a result, they developed little identification
with it or its inhabitants. “Instant cities,” one urban historian has suggested, did not
always turn out “instant citizens.” It was only those that did that emerged as
metropolises; the others became ghost towns.

By December 1883, on the eve of officially becoming a city, Roanoke was clearly a
far different place than it had been just three years earlier. Newcomers now
outnumbered Big Lick natives by nearly three to one, industrial labor had supplanted
tobacco manufacturing as the main source of employment, commercial and retail
development had shifted east, and a paternalistic corporation managed the eastern
part of the city. Local blacks, a majority in 1880, were now a distinct minority
relegated to the margins of unskilled manual labor. They joined a rural segment of
newcomers in run-down neighborhoods in the west and on “Bunker Hill” while skilled
workers from the North moved into new housing on company property in the east.

The small cadre of local businessmen that lured the railroad to Big Lick made
substantial profits when the company purchased their property, and they benefited
the most from swift increases in demand for their products or services. Moreover, the
railroad rewarded a few men at the top of the local economic and political ladder with
bank presidencies and appointments to its industries’ boards of directors. In the
process, it cultivated strong and lasting alliances with the group of natives that could
best insulate it from less sympathetic residents or disgruntled employees.

Finally, numerous retail and commercial enterprises had opened in Roanoke’s new
downtown district, as had dozens of working-class saloons. Along Railroad Avenue
(later renamed Salem Avenue) a boisterous and rowdy element was becoming
apparent; in the years to come, more bars and eventually brothels would move in,
making the street a thriving center of debauchery before it was targeted for
destruction by white “reformers” and local clergy.

For while Roanoke’s tax exemption proved a bonanza for northern capitalists and a