The story below is a preview from our November/December 2017 issue. For the full story Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Long an important link between the Hollins area and northwest city, the roadway was extended to Brandon Avenue in 1996.
George Davis images courtesy Roanoke City Library Virginia Room
LOCATION
Southwest Roanoke City/North Roanoke County
FEATURES
Peters Creek Road links some of the Roanoke Valley’s busiest commercial and transportation corridors. At its southern terminus with Brandon Avenue in Roanoke City to its northern terminus with Williamson Road (U.S. 11) near Hollins, the road intersects or connects with Melrose Avenue, Airport Road, Shenandoah Avenue, and the I-581 interchange.
HISTORY
The history of Peters Creek Road actually begins in the Colonial Period. In 1748, German immigrant Peter Kinder settled on a 150-acre tract at the junction of Peters Creek and the Roanoke River. It was Kinder’s presence along the creek that the name “Peter’s Creek” was derived. Kinder was taking advantage of a land grant allowance initiated by Virginia to lure German and Scots-Irish immigrants from Pennsylvania into the Virginia frontier. Another settler, Methusalem Griffith, purchased some 400 acres on the northern end of Peter’s Creek that same year.
Settling along a creek had its advantages, but the Kinder family met a tragic end due to the creek flooding in 1749. A fellow German and neighbor of the Kinders described what happened in a letter published in 1750 in a Germantown, Pennsylvania, newspaper:
“Peter Kinder and his wife found a horrible end. They were not yet asleep…and thought of no danger till the water suddenly rose up to the house and no more escape was possible. So they retreated to the attic. No sooner had they reached it than the water rose up to them. They placed boards on the collar beam and sat on them. When the water reached their arms and no more flight seemed possible, he lost heart…he asked his wife to give him a kiss. As he grabbed her, both slid from the board and away with the waters. Those who were with them on the boards saw no more of them.”
The family trapped with the Kinders in the attic survived. When the waters receded, they discovered the home had been swept a mile downstream as they had remained perched on the cross beam. Kinder’s wife’s body was discovered a few days later, her lifeless form clutching a tree branch. Kinder’s headless corpse was found a week later.
A large influx of settlers near the Kinder and Griffith tracts created a small village that by 1769 was called New Antrim, located near the present-day intersection of Peters Creek Road Extension and Salem Turnpike. This location also was home to the first Presbyterian church in the Roanoke Valley. Frontier missionary, the Rev. John Craig, organized 43 families into a congregation known as the Ebenezer Church complete with a small, log meeting house. The building was abandoned in 1819 and the congregation merged with a church at Tinker Creek. Over time, the congregation later moved to Salem and then Big Lick (Roanoke) and ultimately became today’s First Presbyterian Church.
A resident of New Antrim was George Howbert who erected a two-story log home around 1800 complete with a stone cellar. Some years later, possibly around 1816, the Howberts added to the home that now overlooked Peters Creek and the family’s farm and orchards. The home may have also served as a tavern and lodged travelers. The home was still standing nearly two centuries later when it was razed in 1999, being one of the oldest and rarest such structures in the Roanoke Valley.
During the New Antrim era, Dr. John Neely owned over 1,000 acres. The road that passed through his tract became known as Neely’s Road and connected Salem and Big Lick. Originally a trail blazed by Native Americans, Neely’s Road is today the Salem-Lynchburg Turnpike.
On the north end of Peters Creek Road was the small community of Burlington. Taking its name allegedly from a Native American tribe, the “town” of Burlington never materialized, though Burlington Elementary School, erected in 1937, gets its name from that early village.
SIGNIFICANCE
In 1933, Peters Creek Road became a state highway and is today officially known as Virginia Route 117. With the development of Woodrum Field (Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport) during World War II and commercial aviation thereafter, Peters Creek Road became a vital link for moving airport-related cargo. Its importance increased with the emergence of the national Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and ‘60s as the corridor linked the airport and other elements of the valley with both I-81 and I-581, creating the need to make Peters Creek Road a four-lane, divided highway in 1960.
With the development and widening of Peters Creek Road, the corridor quickly became a gateway to residential developments, such as North Lakes on the former site of the Wipledale Farm. Also in the North Lakes area was the dairy farm of Harold Craun. Craun milked 90 Holsteins on his 147-acre farm, supplying Garst Brothers Dairy. He was also the last turkey producer in Roanoke County before selling his farm to developers. Schools and churches soon followed residents. North Roanoke Baptist opened in 1957. Melrose Presbyterian Church (now Westminster Presbyterian) relocated to Peters Creek Road in 1958 as did First Wesleyan in 1968 and Melrose Baptist in 1969.
Northside High School opened in January 1961, and Northside Middle School in 1969.
WHAT HAPPENED?
By the early 1970s, the Peters Creek Road corridor had changed dramatically. No longer a two-lane road through farm land and woods, the road was a major vehicular artery in the valley’s transportation network. The airport, interstate, residential developments, small businesses, auto dealerships, and large commercial enterprises fronted Peters Creek Road.
In 1996, the southern terminus was extended from Melrose Avenue to Brandon Avenue bringing the road’s total distance to 7.2 miles. Peters Creek Road Extension allowed the former Roanoke Electric Steel plant direct access to the corridor.
Today, the Virginia Department of Transportation estimates 16,000 vehicles use Peters Creek Road daily, and Roanoke County considers the highway an integral part of enhancing economic growth in north county, especially around the intersections with Airport and Williamson roads.
... for more from our November/December 2017 issue, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!