Page 56 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

The mayor’s good friend S. S. Brooke, a longtime advocate of just such reform, offered
guidance to the doctors on the board by pointing out parts of town where residents created “an
abomination to the eye and nose” by dumping “slops” into their yards. The resulting odors, he
argued, “ought to warn every healthful person of the malarial influence breeding there, to break
out eventually in fevers and diphtheria.”

Lack of sewers, primitive drainage, and stagnant marshes all bred disease, and as the
population increased, deaths from pathogens skyrocketed. By 1885, the city’s death rate of
over thirty-one persons per thousand had even far surpassed the rate for New York City. “A
good many deaths” that year, according to one resident, had come from widespread outbreaks
of “diphtheria” and “cholera.”

Dr. George S. Luck, head of the board of health, attempted to remedy the situation by insisting
that residents use disinfectants regularly and “exercise unusual diligence in maintaining their
premises in a cleanly condition.” Sickness from disease, however, continued unabated, as did
persistent rumors about dangerous health conditions in Roanoke. Local writer Thomas Bruce,
like other residents, resented the published reports of sickness and death in town.

“Some people,” he protested, “are disposed to raise trivial and frivolous comments as to
Roanoke’s health, but we who have lived and resided here enjoy the same health as other
people.” Yes, people died there, Bruce explained, “but not in greater numbers than elsewhere,
and considering the number of excavations going on for new buildings in the city, we wonder
that, without a proper sewerage system, it should be so healthy.” The board of health did what it
could, issuing fines for unclean premises and immunizing locals against smallpox, but ongoing
sewer problems continued to hinder its efforts.

Dunstan and the new council attempted to remedy this problem while also addressing the city’s
infrastructure needs. The municipality was still broke, so local leaders passed a bond initiative
allocating $25,000 for a new courthouse and jail, $12,000 to channel and cover Lick Run,
$10,000 for a market house, $8,500 for new schools, and $4,500 for a poorhouse. Although
citizens showed they had more confidence in the new government by overwhelmingly
endorsing these bonds, debate on how exactly to spend the money soon developed.

Among the first to criticize plans for the bonds was businessman D. C. Moomaw, who argued in
a letter to the editor that council’s intention to continue using Lick Run as a primitive sewer was
misguided and shortsighted. The complete allocation, he suggested, should go toward the
construction of a modern sewer system and to macadamize the “impassable bogs” that the city
used for roads.

Furniture store owner and newly elected councilman E. H. Stewart seconded Moomaw’s
opinion, arguing at a meeting of officials that the city should implement sanitary engineer
Randolph Herring’s 1882 drainage and sewer plan. Council agreed, and that winter it approved
a vote on combining all the bonds into a single fund to construct sewers and improve roads. The
proposal, however, failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote, leaving council no choice but
to fund the original plan.