The Roanoker May/June 2017 - 10

FROM THE EDITOR

'Town Inc.' On the Trail to Success?
The book talks about how to hook your business to the true identity of
your town and make that town boom. Ready?
"TOWN INC.: GROW YOUR BUSINESS. SAVE YOUR TOWN. LEAVE
YOUR LEGACY." by Andrew Davis, is
the hot new book in economic development realms.
Or maybe it's cooled off a little, as it came
out last fall.
Anyway, its assertion is that communities with a defining identity-
Silicon Valley as the Tech Capital of the World, Muscle Shoals as the
R & B Capital of the World, Hartford (Connecticut) as the Insurance
Capital of the World. Etc.-are communities that grow and thrive. And
businesses associated with those communities do the same.
His point being: You can grow your business by helping your community not only find its "Capital of" identity, but, as important, by
developing the emotional story behind that (genuine) identity that will
change your town (and your business) forever and for the way-better!
He mentions, for one example, that the per-person income in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (think Aretha, Otis, Wilson, etc. etc.) is $19,000
more than the per-person at the like-sized city 12 miles down the road
in Alabama.
And the ID doesn't have to be as sexy as music or tech. Take Warsaw,
Indiana: Orthopedics Capital of the World! But the "capital of" aspect
has to be not only real, but also come with that compelling origin story.
OK, JUMP BACK, JUMP WAY BACK, for a moment, into history. To the pre-Big Lick days, when what this area was known for, at
least by the people who lived here,
were wildlife trails to and from the
river and other wet spots. And the
use and expansion of those pathways
by Native Americans going after the
wildlife and in need of the water.
The arrival of white settlers came,
in general, from two directions-
from the east, on pathways following the Roanoke river; and from the
north, down across the lowlands of
the Shenandoah Valley.
So Big Lick and later Greater Roanoke came into semi-modern being
Change your town.
via trails that today, roughly, are the
The formula's inside.
routes of U.S. 460 from the east and
10 | MAY/JUNE 2017

U.S. 11 from the north.
As the late Roanoke historian Raymond Barnes put it long ago in
"A History of the City of Roanoke": Over the centuries the herds of buffalo, elk and deer had trodden well-defined trails . . . one of the game trails
passed through Buford's Gap more or less along present route 460. This
trail became known early as "The Great Road." From Northern Virginia,
through the Shenandoah Valley ran a similiar well-defined trace (approximately the present route of Highways 11 and 220) which was variously
called "The Carolina Trail" and "the Philadelphia Road."
OK, JUMP AHEAD SOME THIS TIME, to yes, the coming of paved
11, 220, 460, in the early 1900s, and, decades later, I-81 (1950s and
'60s)-all trails at their origin and still so in the broader sense.
Pause then at the advent of the auto age, when famed planner John
Nolen sent along to city council his 1928 "Comprehensive City Plan,
Roanoke, Virginia." . . . A clear-running stream with grassy banks tree
bordered is a delight, he wrote, and acquisition of land along natural
streamways should be a community duty." And elsewhere: Tinker Creek,
Mud Lick, Murray's Run . . . and portions of the Roanoke River form the
basic course . . .
Meanwhile, in the ensuing decade, two more trails were being added
to the Roanoke Valley, one in the front yard and one in the back.
In a little office in Salem, famed landscape architect Stanley Abbot
was making detailed plans for a trail to be "painted with a comet's
tail," and to be used primarily by the still-new and increasingly popular automobile. Soon, across our front (eastward) yard, was the Blue
Ridge Parkway.
And out back, the vision of Benton MacKaye was coming into being,
piece by piece and step by step, root by root and rock by rock. Today,
the 2,189-mile, 14-state Appalachian Trail not only has its most miles
in Virginia (550, of which 93.5 are in our counties of Botetourt, Craig
and Roanoke), but also arguably its most concentrated scenic stretch,
which is truly just out back: Drive less than half an hour from downtown Roanoke and you are ready to walk the trail to McAfee Knob.
Or Dragon's Tooth. Or Tinker Cliffs.
Or walk to all three via the glorious 35-mile Triple Crown Loop that
includes the North Mountain Trail.
And that, while perhaps the crown jewel of our trails, ain't the dang
half of it.
How about a mountain, completely in the city limits, with trails up
its back side, down its front and all over its sides, adding up to the Mill
Mountain collection of 9.1 miles?
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The Roanoker May/June 2017

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