Roanoke At 10

It was a warm day in 1892 when proud and booming Magic City threw itself one heck of a birthday party.

It was 88 years ago this summer that Roanoke, just 10 years old at the time, enjoyed one of her brightest and proudest moments—her decennial celebration.

Not many towns would have considered making a big deal of a mere 10th anniversary, but Roanoke had special cause to celebrate her first decade. In only 10 years Roanoke had metamorphosed from a country town of 900 residents into a thriving city with a population of nearly 25,000. Besides that, Roanoke was still prospering in 1892, unlike many other Western and Southern boomtowns that failed during the 1890’s depression.

Roanoke officials, apparently disliking the connotation of the term, insisted Roanoke was not a boomtown, but a city solidly established on firm financial footings. By just about anybody’s definition, however, Roanoke’s phenomenal growth between 1882 and 1892 would have to be considered a boom, particularly since the new prosperity was based on the city’s sudden attractiveness caused by the Shenandoah Valley Railroad’s decision to form a junction in Roanoke with the Norfolk and Western Railroad. That junction was completed on June 18, 1882, and the next day the first Shenandoah Valley train rolled into the Roanoke station from Hagerstown. Md.

Roanoke was actually chartered as a town on Feb. 3, 1882 (and a city two years later), but the day the junction was completed has passed into history as the city’s official birthday, perhaps because it is more fun to throw gala anniversary celebrations in June than in February.

A committee of contemporary Roanokers has already been appointed to make plans for Roanoke’s centennial in the summer of 1982, but it is doubtful that anything planned today could come close to capturing the spirit and imagination of the people as did the 1892 celebration.

Decennial festivities planned by real estate agent James S. Simmons and his celebration committee were to span two days, Friday and Saturday, June 17 and 18, and include music, “eminent orators,” a trades parade, military encampment on the Roanoke River, a sham battle, “athletic sports,” fireworks, bicycle and horse racing and baseball games.

The city itself turned red, white and blue for the celebration with patriotic decorations festooning most businesses and many homes.

The Second Virginia regiment was in place by the Roanoke River on Friday awaiting the next day’s arrival’ of the First Virginia from Richmond and the Fourth Virginia from Petersburg and Norfolk. The soldiers would take part in Saturday’s parade and stage the mock battle below Mill Mountain Saturday evening.

A professional baseball team from Winston, N.C., was in town to play (and beat) the Roanoke team in two exhibition games. But the highlight of Friday’s activities was the free concert staged at the Sam Jones Tabernacle on Jefferson Street between Church and Kirk avenues. A program of mostly classical music was

performed by a chorus of 200 Roanokers accompanied by an orchestra of local musicians. Also performing was the Roanoke Machine Works band. Between the first and second parts of the concert, James S. Simmons, celebration chairman, delivered the welcoming address and John E. Penn gave a brief history of the young city. Keynote speaker was H. Kyd Douglass of Maryland, who congratulated the city on its fine progress.

The concert ended at 11 o’clock and Roanokers went home to rest up for the next day’s festivities.

June 18th dawned a hot, humid day. Roanokers were up and about early, making preparations for the day ahead.

The Baltimore Sun described that early-morning hubbub of activity: “The day was ushered in by the firing of ten guns at sunrise, and soon the population was astir, while the early trains came in packed with people, and on all the country roads people came in carriages and wagons, on horseback and afoot, until by 9 o’clock it was estimated that there were 15,000 visitors in the city.”

The first activity of the day and one of the grandest spectacles was the trades parade, made up of some 5,000 marching soldiers, workers and members of 50 lodges and secret societies, a dozen bands and nearly 100 floats representing Roanoke business and industry.

As parade time drew near, “the streets, windows and housetops along the line of march presented a living sea of eager and expectant faces,” The Roanoke Times recalled in the next day’s edition. At about 11 a.m. the parade, reported to be about two miles long, moved north on Jefferson Street and proceeded down Campbell to a chorus of cheers.

Leading the line were the police chief and a squad of 10 mounted policemen followed by Parade Marshal Henri Davin (president of Roanoke Transfer Co.), other members of the festival’s executive committee and city officials riding in carriages. Then came the corps of cadets from Virginia Military Institute and the First, Second and Fourth Virginia regiments.

Also marching were the Blacksburg cadets and military companies from Winston, N.C., Hagerstown, Md., Richmond, Danville and Lynchburg.

The Philadelphia Press reporting on the decennial parade waxed poetical at the sight of so much military pomp: “The soldier boys added luster to the line. Military companies containing the flower of Virginia chivalry from all parts of the State, VMI lads and the famous Blacksburg cadets vied with one another in executing maneuvers which deservedly won the applause of the fair daughters and gallant Southern sons who with hundreds of strangers, many of them investors in Roanoke’s prosperity, lined the avenues when the parade marched by.”

Aside from the military, one of the most impressive sights in the parade was the Roanoke Machine Works employees, about 1,100 strong (including a hundred black laborers), marching in fine formation behind the Machine Works Band decked out in uniforms of light blue trousers with gold stripes and dark blue coats trimmed in gold lace.

The floats were unlike anything many Roanokers had ever seen. Nearly every business of any size in the city had an entry.

Virginia Brewing Co. displayed a large version of its logo on a platform of growing hop vines. Cold Storage Company’s float “When the battle ceased and the smoke rolled away from the plain, the great crowd went back into the city highly delighted with the entertainment and glad that it was only a mimic battle.” contained large blocks of ice into which were frozen a pig, a red snapper, vegetables and fruits.

American Bridge and Iron Co. had a bridge and a stationary engine supplying lower for a small riveting machine on its float. Roanoke Sanitary Plumbing “company displayed a porcelain bathtub. Both Hammond Printing and Bell Printing Co., (which would change its name to Stone Printing and Manufacturing in September), carried presses on their floats. Bell had a young printer actually running off circulars and passing them out to the crowd.

Hobbie Music Company’s float, drawn by ‘our fine horses,” carried musicians performing on $2,000 worth of pianos and organs.

The Roanoke Times’ float, the tallest in the parade (20 feet), featured a 125-pound dog named Mike riding atop the float while, by The Times’ own account, “his colored attendant held an umbrella over him to keep If the sun.” The newspaper float’s motto as “The Times is the watchdog of Roanoke.”

One of the most notable floats was Pocahontas Coal Company’s 17,000-pound lump of coal, thought to be the largest piece of bituminous coal ever mined in the United States. (This coal is now housed at the Roanoke Transportation Museum.)

Heironimus and Brugh recreated a dry goods store in miniature on its float, and Fishburne Brothers Tobacco Co. demonstrated the packing of their leaf. The Master Builders Association entered a summerhouse on wheels as their float. The floats of M. L. Smith, a book, stationery and music store, and Andrews and Thomas, wholesale grocers, featured blacks performing in minstrel shows.

Bringing up the rear of the parade were 40 expert cyclists and a band of callithumpians.

Even though barrels of ice water were placed throughout the city to allay celebrants’ thirsts, the stifling heat reportedly caused some parade participants to drop out and some spectators to swoon.

A brief rain shower fell just as the parade was breaking up and cooled things off a bit. After lunch the VMI cadet corps held a dress parade on the lawn of the Hotel Roanoke. The reviewing party included Norfolk and Western President F. J. Kimball, for whom Roanoke was almost named, H. Kyd Douglass and former Virginia Governor Fitzhugh Lee.

In late afternoon celebrants started making their way toward the area that is now South Roanoke where the mock or sham battle would take place along the Roanoke River. Many people rode the electric streetcar to the battle site and picked out comfortable perches on the hillsides from which to view the proceedings. The battle got under way at about 6 p.m. amid a barrage of blank musket fire. Some 2,000 soldiers took place in the sham battle, each equipped with 15 pounds of blank cartridges.

A large crowd estimated between 15,000 and 20,000 (but one must be skeptical of 19 th century crowd estimates) gathered to cheer the friendly armies on. The sham battle was reported to have lasted about half an hour. This is how the Baltimore Sun described the military exercise: “Eight pieces of artillery were rapidly loaded and fired, and there was an incessant rattle of musketry.

“When the battle ceased and the smoke rolled away from the plain, it was found that nobody was hurt and the great crowd went back to the city highly delighted with the entertainment and glad that it was only a mimic battle.”

But the day did not end with the battle. A firemen’s parade was held at 8 p.m., and between 8:30 and 9 the skies were set ablaze with several thousand pounds of fireworks shot from St. Andrew’s Hill.

For most Roanokers and visitors the day of celebration ended with the fireworks, however, in Roanoke’s numerous saloons patriotic toasting with Decennial Whiskey (distilled in 1882) probably went on into the wee hours.

Although the two-day celebration officially ended with the Saturday night fireworks, some merrymakers spent the rest of the weekend in the city, taking trains back home late Sunday night or early Monday morning. Out-of-towners who stayed over spent Sunday sightseeing. Many made the trip up to Rockledge Inn and the observatory atop Mill Mountain. The popular Machine Works Band gave a concert of sacred music Sunday afternoon in Water Works Park (now Crystal Spring Park) and at 6:30 p.m. the Second Virginia still encamped on the river held a dress parade.

Elsewhere in the city, floats were being dismantled and decorations removed as Roanoke residents tried to bring their city back to normal.

By every account the celebration was a tremendous success, particularly given that most of the planning was done in the space of one month.

The decennial celebration received widespread press coverage because the executive committee had the good sense to extend invitations to newspapers all over Virginia and in surrounding states. The Philadelphia Press wrote glowingly, “Right royally have the good people of the Old Dominion celebrated … the decennial of the Magic City, and Southern hospitality has been lavishly dispensed to all who came to join in merrymaking.”

A Baltimore Sun editorial said, “The ‘Magic City,’ as its friends like to call it, has been developed by the magic of hard work, untiring energy, business shrewdness and determination, and that is the only sort of magic that amounts to anything in these latter days.”

The editor of the Bristol News wrote in his paper: “After having enjoyed the hospitalities of the fair city of Roanoke . . . for two or three days, it is hardly to be expected that an editor can find words to express his admiration of the manner in which the people entertain, as well as the grand scale on which the decennial celebration was conducted. To say it was a great success is putting it in a very tame way. It probably surpassed anything of the kind ever held in the State.”

The celebration so moved a Fincastle Herald reporter that he declared he would not be surprised if Roanoke one day became the state’s capital.

Several spectators, including The Roanoke Times reporter remarked upon the sterling behavior of the crowd, which exhibited “little if any drunkenness or disorderly conduct.”

Roanoke businessman L. H. Brugh spoke for his colleagues when he told a reporter the day after the celebration, “In my opinion (the celebration) insures the future of Roanoke. People will not now be afraid to invest. They will see that the city is not a myth, but is built on a solid foundation and that will always bring capital and population.”

After the decennial was over, the planning committee found it had a surplus of funds and with them published a souvenir brochure commemorating the anniversary and the festival. The planners addressed posterity in the brochure’s introduction:

“The 18th of June, 1892, being the Tenth Anniversary of the existence of Roanoke City, Virginia, was celebrated in a manner, the remarkable success of which will be referred to as an epoch in her history.”

That’s a tough act to follow, even if you are 100 years old.

 

Originally published in the May, 1980 issue of The Roanoker