Page 67 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

In the 1880s, during some residents’ quest to improve and “moralize” their home, the City of
Roanoke became a symbol of the sort of development that was possible in what boosters were
calling the New South. Roanoke’s “rags to riches” story, replete with impoverished origins, local
initiative, and northern dollars, became a saga of progress that most spokesmen for the region
referred to repeatedly. Northern papers likewise heralded the “Magic City” as an example of
what was feasible when Yankee entrepreneurs used their acumen to liberate valuable minerals
and natural resources that locals had ignored for centuries.

Under northern tutelage, they explained, natives had not only awakened to the possibilities
offered by outsiders, they had even begun to participate in the harvest themselves, either by
creating their own industries, speculating in land, or advertising the region to mesmerized
financiers. In the Virginia Highlands and in Roanoke, a New York Times correspondent
observed in 1887, “there is manifested now a spirit which calls for little more than constant
pursuit to add materially to the strength, the influence, and the distinction of what is named ‘the
new South.’”

It goes without saying that the Norfolk & Western Railroad was largely responsible for
the transformation, having opened the entire region up for industrialization by providing cheap
access to iron and coal. The railroad lured thousands of investors into the mountains of the Old
Dominion, and throughout the 1880s, mines, furnaces and rolling mills sprang up along its
tracks. Northerners and Europeans invested millions of dollars in these enterprises and
speculated heavily in Highland and Roanoke property. These outside groups, however, did not
develop the region alone; natives campaigned heavily for investments, courted financiers, and
eventually began their own manufacturing enterprises. The role of insiders, especially in
Roanoke, was every bit as crucial to industrialization as Yankee dollars.

Roanoke, as the only large city in Southwest Virginia, served as the headquarters for the
region’s extractive industries and as the epicenter of the coal, iron, and land “booms” that swept
the area in the 1880s and early 1890s. Its residents successfully courted new manufacturers
and convinced thousands of speculators to invest in local land schemes. Although the
economic “boom” ushered in a new wave of manufacturing enterprises and for a time bolstered
natives’ bank accounts, the vast majority of the real estate speculations resulted in little actual
development. Moreover, the “boom” did not solve Roanoke’s chronic infrastructure problems.
New industries not only received free land, but also paid no taxes, leaving the municipality with
few of the funds necessary to address local needs. Mud streets and primitive open sewers
greeted visitors until the early 1890s, as did rumors that the town was particularly unhealthy and
rife with disease. Optimists, undaunted, still billed their home as the “Magic City,” a metropolis
that had risen up in cow pastures to take its place in the vanguard of the New South.

There seems to come a time in all businesses when it reaches that ‘make-or-break’ point. The
Machine Shop was no exception. Before the economic boom hit Roanoke, the town and its
industries had to deal with the impact of the 1883 national recession. Since opening in 1882,
employees at the city’s massive machine works had turned out eight coal hoppers or boxcars
per day, completed nine new locomotives, and repaired hundreds of old engines and railcars.