Big Lick was a stop on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad which connected Lynchburg with Bristol. Named for an outcropping of salt that attracted the wildlife to the site.

Following the Civil War a civil engineer and hero was the primary force in the linkage of railroads creating a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol. The role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when other financial interests took control. The subsequent company was renamed Norfolk and Western Railway.

Frederick J. Kimball ran the line and the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. For the junction for the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk and Western roads they selected the Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. The citizens renamed their town to Roanoke after the river. The town became an independent city in 1884.

Kimball pushed lines through the West Virginia, Ohio and south to Durham, North Carolina . This railroad route structure remained in use more than 60 years.

The opening of the coalfields made railroad prosperous and Pocahontas bituminous coal world-famous. Transported by the railroad and neighboring Virginian Railway (VGN), it fueled half the world’s navies and today stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe. The railroad was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house. It was Norfolk and Western’s Roanoke Shops, that made the company known industry-wide for its excellence in steam power. The Roanoke Shops, with its workforce of thousands, is where the famed classes A, J, and Y6 locomotives were designed, built, and maintained, and new steam locomotives were built there until 1953, long after diesel-electric had emerged as the motive power of choice for most North American railroads.

Today, Roanoke is famous for its Chili Cook-Off, Strawberry Festival, and the large red, white, and blue illuminated Mill Mountain Star on Mill Mountain, which is visible from many points in the city and neighboring valley. At the top of Mill Mountain is a small zoo which features animals that require the cool mountaintop temperatures and atmosphere.

Popularity: 20% [?]