Page 23 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

New information about the history of Roanoke
Big Lick to Roanoke from 1874-part Six

By Richard Mundy
Sources:refer to New Research Sources-previously posted

In the this installment a civil engineer was hired to make recommendations but the
worrisome maneuvering of Clark and company to continue to create the new city to the east,
towards Vinton and Bonsack was of great concern to the current citizenry of “Old Town”
Roanoke.

It is my belief that were it not for the intention of Clark and the N&W to create their
headquarters east of Big Lick, Roanoke would not even have been in consideration for the
terminus. Luckily the land in the eastern part of the area was available and the amenities
offered by the current city council was still attractive enough to allow Clark to in effect play
both ends against the middle and hedge their bets with respect to their decision to make
Roanoke their headquarters.

By the end of 1883, Roanoke was just beginning to grapple with its revenue shortfalls and
infrastructure problems, and its residents were just setting the initial stage for building a
community out of their town’s diverse and often hostile factions. This prevailing atmosphere
laid the groundwork for some serious attention to be directed toward Roanoke’s inherent
problems.

James R. Schick, a civil engineer hired by the Improvement Company, came to town
in August 1881 to lay out the railroad’s property. Schick positioned workers’ housing mainly
to the northeast of Big Lick – adjoining the tract set aside for the Roanoke Machine Works –
and he named new streets throughout the prospective development for former Virginia
Governors. Those street names, still in existence today include : Henry, Jefferson, Nelson,
Jameson, Harrison, Randolph, Lee, Tazewell, Campbell, Gilmer, Patton, Rutherford,
Gregory, Wise, Wells, and Walker.

In the fall, the RL&IC gave reporters a preview of Schick’s plats. “The town,” a writer for the
Big Lick Weekly News explained, “extends from Tinker creek on the east to Commerce
street on the West, and from the village of Gainsborough on the north to Brook avenue . . .
on the south.”

By then, the RL&IC had already signed the first of hundreds of contracts for construction of
cottages along the new roads. Its initial agreement called for completion by the end of 1881
of three duplexes at $1,300 each and five “single homes” at $700 each. Similar contracts
followed, including one for twenty “single homes” at $1,100 each. The company’s town went
up in former pastures or fields, and while this made the land relatively easy to develop, the
stark landscape was so aesthetically displeasing that it hired a landscape designer to plant
close to one thousand “shade trees” using “American Beech, Deciduous Cypress, Norway