The Great Valley Road of Virginia

by Hofstra, Warren R.; Raitz, Karl

• ISBN13: 9780813928852
• ISBN10: 0813928850
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-30
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

The Great Valley Road of Virginia: ShenandoahLandscapes from Prehistory to the Present chronicles the story ofone of America's oldest, most historic, and most geographically significant roads.Native Americans had used the Great Valley of the Appalachians for travel andsubsistence long before the arrival of Europeans. As one of the principal routes ofAnglo-American migration and settlement, the Valley Road constituted a segment of amuch longer road--the longest in early American history--that began in southeasternPennsylvania and headed southwest into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia beforethreading through western North and South Carolina to upcountry Georgia. At the timeof the American Revolution and thereafter, Americans used the Valley Road as acrucial link connecting eastern states through the Cumberland Gap to frontiers inTennessee, Kentucky, southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and points beyond. Althoughother routes west developed during the nineteenth century, the rebuilding of theValley Road as the Valley Turnpike assured that it would not only play a vital rolein the economic and social life of the Shenandoah Valley, but also that it wouldcontinue to link this region to commercial and cultural centers in major East Coastcities. The strategic role that the Valley played in the American Civil War wasrooted in its geography and transportation history. After the war the Valley Roadaided in the rapid recovery of western Virginia. The continued importance of theValley Road in the twentieth century is evidenced by its designation as one ofAmerica's most memorable and beautiful national highways, Route 11, and by theintensive use of its modern incarnation, Interstate 81.The Great Valley Road of Virginia featuresoriginal, previously unpublished chapters, by leading scholars who delve into foursignificant periods of the road's development--from prehistory to the colonialperiod, from the American Revolution to the early national period, from thedevelopment of the turnpike through the early twentieth century, and then from theturnpike era to the automobile age and the prominence of U.S. 11 before and afterthe opening of Interstate 81. Emphasized throughout the chapters is a concern forlandscape character and the connection of the land to the people who traveled theroad, and for permanent residents, who depended upon it for their livelihoods. Alsoincluded are chapters about the towns supported by the road as well as therelationship of physical geography (the lay of the land) to the engineering aspectsof the road. More than one hundred maps, photographs, engravings and line drawingsenhance the book's value to scholars and general readersalike.Published in Association the Center for AmericanPlaces