From The Times-Register archives
Economic Survey Of County By G. R. Stevens Shows Progress Of Better Highways In County Since 1900
From the 1938 centennial edition of The Times-Register
Roanoke County received its first surfaced road in 1909, work beginning on the strip which was to extend from Roanoke to Hollins Station, a distance of 4.7 miles, in May of that year, according to an economic survey of Roanoke County published several years ago by G. R. Stevens, of the University of Virginia.
This road was twenty-two feet wide, covered with macadam fir sixteen feet of its width. Records show that in 1910 this first hard surfaced road was extended to Hollins .7 of a mile beyond Hollins Station.
The following year in 1911 another macadam road was constructed from Roanoke to Peter’s Creek School, a distance of 2.7 miles, and in 1913 the highway to Salem by way of Virginia Heights and an extension to the Williamson Road were completed.
Further progress was made in the good road drive in Roanoke County in 1915 when construction was completed on the road over Catawba Mountain, a distance of four and a half miles from Catawba Station to the Sanitorium. Yet with this advancement by 1918 there was little more than a thirty mile strip of hard surfaced highway in Roanoke County.
It remained for the advancement of the automobile for Roanoke County to connect all of its outlying points b good road, and today the main arteries of the highway system, raddiating from Roanoke County to the north, south, east and west are all paved. The Lee Highway is one of the finest pieces of road construction found anywhere in the state. More than 50 miles of paved road is part of the state system, exclusive of the federal highways in the county.
-Prepared by Lisa King