For release Wednesday, Nov. 30

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                                                                                    George Kegley, 366-4607

    Fincastle, Booker T. Washington birthplace called endangered sites

            The Town of Fincastle, two old homes, a Roanoke County mountain site proposed for a cell telephone tower, a vacant train station and the Booker T. Washington National Monument, both in Franklin County, make up the 2005 listing of six endangered sites selected by the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation.

Most of the sites are endangered because of a lack of adequate planning for commercial and residential growth and neglect of old properties. This selection continues a recognition of threatened sites started in 1996.

 The sites were announced at the Foundation’s annual meeting Tuesday (Nov. 29) at Hollins University. Rob Nieweg, southern field office director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, talked on “Hot Topics in Historic Preservation,” at the meeting. He told of critical challenges facing grassroots historic preservationists today.

            The threatened sites:

o        Town of Fincastle—The 235-year-old county seat of Botetourt County faces development of 200 houses on its outskirts, roughly doubling its size, thereby creating traffic congestion and eliminating the rural ambiance.

o        North Mountain in Roanoke County—The Verizon Wireless communications company has asked Roanoke County for a special use permit for a 150-foot cell telephone tower at Keith’s Revenge, a point on North Mountain above Catawba Hospital.

o        Booker T. Washington National Monument—The historic birthplace of the nationally known black educator soon will have a retail center and townhouses on adjacent land rezoned from agricultural use. The development plan drew 150 opponents at a hearing.

o        Union Hall station of the old Franklin & Pittsylvania Railroad—Long abandoned, the board and batten building is at the edge of a coming shopping center to be constructed along Rt. 40 in eastern Franklin County.

o        Fellers House—Located at 3003 Hollins Road, the 1882 brick Italianate home was built by Mason Lee Fellers, farmer-businessman and father of the late Law and Chancery Court Judge Stanford Fellers. The house, formerly occupied by children with mental and emotional problems, now is boarded up and held for future use by Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare.

o        Big Spring—At Elliston in Montgomery County, stands Big Spring, a neglected, 15-room brick home, believed to have been constructed in the early 1800s and once occupied by famed Salem artist Walter Biggs. Joe Stewart, current owner, bought the big house from the estate of Olin Moomaw who extensively remodeled the building and sold watercress  from small lakes nearby.

Evie Slone, foundation president, said these six sites “are important landmarks that contribute to the high quality of life enjoyed by residents of our region. Every effort should be made to raise public awareness of the threats to these special sites.

“The Foundation hopes that the endangered sites listing of these properties will help to preserve these important heritage resources for the future. We encourage other residents of the region to join with us in working with these properties and their owners to achieve a successful outcome that includes preservation.”

One developer has gained Botetourt County approval to construct 170 homes on grassy slopes just outside the northwest boundary of Fincastle, behind the historic Santillane mansion and another builder has approval to locate 30 homes immediately northeast of the town. This comes after a proposed expansion of the town limits was rejected by county supervisors. After the houses are built over the next several years, a county seat little changed for two centuries will see population of the local area doubled, creating major traffic problems on U.S. 220 and a major shift in the town’s historic character and viewshed, opponents say. Town leaders complain of a communications gap and a lack of cooperation in planning with the county..

North Mountain’s elevation of 2,863 feet, once crossed by the Appalachian Trail, has no towers at present but in its application to Roanoke County, Verizon Wireless said a lattice tower will provide needed cell telephone coverage and capacity in western Roanoke and Craig counties. The tower will be 1.5 miles from any building and it will provide backup to public safety communications, the company said. However, the proposal does not meet county policy which discourages cell towers on ridgelines and discourages lattice versus pole construction of towers, said Janet Scheid, county planner. Most people at a community meeting favored a lower location for the tower. The county planning commission and supervisors are to consider the proposal this month.

Franklin County supervisors voted rezoning and special use permits for a shopping center, office park, medical facility, patio homes and town houses on a 57-acre tract just east of the birthplace of Booker T. Washington, a nationally significant black educator. The developer has agreed to place a buffer between the town houses and a trail at the rear of the monument property. Opponents said nearby development will damage views and a creek that runs along the border between the two tracts.

 Developer Ron Willard has offered to give the board and batten onetime passenger station at Union Hall to anyone who will move it. After the 36-mile railroad failed in 1932, the station was used as a grocery and later a boat center but it has been vacant for some time. Franklin County supervisors have approved rezoning for a 22-acre Southlake Town Center at the location of the old station.  A proposal to save the station has come from Charlie Jordan of Boones Mill. Two other stations from F&P Railroad, once known as the Fast & Perfect, at Redwood and Glade Hill are not endangered. They have other uses today and a former railroad flag stop at Novelty also remains but it is vacant. These stations are vivid reminders of an era when local railroad travel was important.

The two-story, three-bay, brick Fellers house is considered an excellent example of fashionable domestic architecture dating to the earliest days of Roanoke. Fellers once farmed 120 acres along Tinker Creek, ran a stone quarry, made brick, taught school for a year and served as a trustee of the Big Lick District. A small brick building, once known as the Lee Fellers School and now a residence, stands along Hollins Road nearby.

On a bluff above U.S. 460, just west of Elliston, stands Big Spring, a 15-room brick home on a knoll above a bold artesian spring, whose flow of several million gallons a day has been reduced by development. The early 1800s house, home for generations of Barnetts, was purchased in 1907 by Capt. D. H. Barger, owner of nearby Walnut Grove mansion, for his daughter, whose husband, Olin Moomaw, remodeled it, adding a story and two porch wings. The house, a short distance from the highway, needs protection because it is threatened by development and urban sprawl. 

 .Among the endangered sites selected by the Foundation since 1996, several have been restored

while others were lost. From the lists in recent years,, the Lonesome Dove Bar & Grille was saved in part, but it will be moved to become part of the Art  Museum of Western Virginia building project. The H&C Coffee sign, unlit for several years, has been restored and moved.  Fairacres, the former garden club center, has been renovated by a private owner.  Among the buildings recently razed are the old Central Manufacturing office with a turret off Shenandoah Avenue, Guildhall on Cove Road and the former Jefferson Street Baptist Church.

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