Roanoke, Virginia - USA

Roanoke is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The city of Roanoke is adjacent to the city of Salem and the town of Vinton and is otherwise surrounded by, but politically separate from, Roanoke County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 94,911. The city is bisected by the Roanoke River. Roanoke is the commercial, cultural, and medical hub of much of the surrounding area of Virginia and southern West Virginia.

The United States Census Bureau includes in Roanoke's metropolitan area the counties of Botetourt, Franklin, Craig and Roanoke, and the cities of Salem and Roanoke. The metropolitan area's population in the past three censuses has been reported to be:

1980 --- 220,393
1990 --- 224,477
2000 --- 235,932
2005 (estimate) --- 292,983
Please note that the figures through 2000 do not include Franklin County (50,345 est. 2005 population) and Craig County (5,154 est. 2005 population) which were recently added to the Roanoke MSA, which is the fourth largest in Virginia (behind the Greater Richmond area, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) and the largest outside of the eastern half of the state.

The town of Big Lick was established in 1852 and chartered in 1874. It was named for a large outcropping of salt which drew the wildlife to the site near the Roanoke River. It became the town of Roanoke in 1882 and was chartered as the independent city of Roanoke in 1884. The name Roanoke is said to have originated from an Algonquin word for shell "money", but the town was almost certainly renamed for the river that bisected it and the county that had surrounded it since 1838. It grew frequently through annexation through the middle of the twentieth century. However, the last annexation was in 1976 and Virginia cities are currently prohibited from annexing land from adjacent counties. Its location in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the middle of the Roanoke Valley between Maryland and Tennessee, made it the transportation hub of western Virginia and contributed to its rapid growth.

During colonial times the site of Roanoke was an important hub of trails and roads. The Great Wagon Road, one of the most heavily travelled roads of eighteenth century America, ran from Philadelphia through the Shenandoah Valley to the future site of the City of Roanoke, where the Roanoke River passed through the Blue Ridge. The Roanoke Gap proved a useful route for immigrants to settle the Carolina Piedmont region. At Roanoke Gap, another branch of the Great Wagon Road, the Wilderness Road, continued southwest to Tennessee and Kentucky.

In the 1850s, Big Lick became a stop on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) which linked Lynchburg with Bristol on the Virginia-Tennessee border.

After the American Civil War (1861-1865), William Mahone, a civil engineer and hero of the Battle of the Crater, was the driving force in the linkage of 3 railroads, including the V&T, across the southern tier of Virginia to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. However, the Financial Panic of 1873 wrecked the AM&O's finances. After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&O was purchased by E.W. Clark and Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad then under construction up the valley from Hagerstown, Maryland. The AM&O was renamed Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W).

Frederick J. Kimball, a civil engineer and partner in the Clark firm, headed the new line and the new Shenandoah Valley Railroad. For the junction for the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk and Western roads, Kimball and his board of directors selected the small Virginia village called Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. Although the grateful citizens offered to rename their town "Kimball", on his suggestion, they agreed to go with Roanoke after the river. As the N&W brought people and jobs, the Town of Roanoke quickly became an independent city in 1884. In fact, Roanoke became a city so quickly that it earned the nickname "Magic City."

Kimball, whose interest in geology was responsible for the opening of the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia, pushed N&W lines through the wilds of West Virginia, north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, and south to Durham, North Carolina and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This gave the railroad the route structure it was to use for more than 60 years.

The Virginian Railway (VGN), an engineering marvel of its day, was conceived and built by William Nelson Page and Henry Huttleston Rogers. Following the Roanoke River, the VGN was built through the City of Roanoke early in the twentieth century. It was merged with the N&W in 1959.

The opening of the coalfields made N&W prosperous and Pocahontas bituminous coal world-famous. Transported by the N&W and neighboring Virginian Railway (VGN), it fueled half the world's navies and today stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe. The N&W was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house. It was Norfolk & Western's Roanoke Shops, that made the company known industry-wide for its excellence in steam power. The Roanoke Shops, with its workforce of thousands, is where the famed classes A, J, and Y6 locomotives were designed, built, and maintained, and new steam locomotives were built there until 1953, long after diesel-electric had emerged as the motive power of choice for most North American railroads. Around 1960, N&W was the last major railroad in the United States to convert from steam to diesel motive power.

The presence of the railroad also made Roanoke attractive to manufacturers. American Viscose opened a large rayon plant in Southeast Roanoke in October 1917. This plant closed in 1958, leaving 5,000 workers unemployed which was soon followed by the 2,000 workers laid off when N&W converted to diesel.

Today, Roanoke is known for its Chili Cook-Off, Local Colors Festival, Henry Street Festival, Strawberry Festival, and the large red, white, and blue illuminated (temporarily illuminated in white on April 22, 2007 in remembrance of the Virginia Tech Massacre of April 16, 2007) Mill Mountain Star on Mill Mountain, which is visible from many points in the city and surrounding valley.

Roanoke also plays host to Festival in the Park, an annual festival which is used to "To enhance and promote the visual and performing arts and sports activities in the Roanoke Valley and surrounding areas, to generate a positive economic impact on the Valley, and to fund an Arts Scholarship Program."

Roanoke Virginia, called "The Star City of the South" lies in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. Many people claim that Roanoke's close proximity to the Blue Ridge Mountains makes it the ideal spot to view the magnificent fall turning of the leaves in the mountains, a colored quilt like extravaganza that visitors come from all over the world to witness.

Bristol, Virginia - USA

Bristol is an independent city in Virginia, bounded by Washington County, Virginia and Sullivan County, Tennessee.

As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 17,367. It is the twin city of Bristol, Tennessee, just across the state line, which runs down the middle of its main street, State Street. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Bristol, Virginia with Washington County for statistical purposes. Along with Kingsport, Tennessee and Johnson City, Tennessee the Bristols form the Tri-Cities.

Originally named Goodson, it was renamed to Bristol in 1890.

Bristol is considered to be the "Birthplace of Country Music" according to a resolution passed by the US Congress in 1998 for its contributions to early country music recordings and influence.

In 1927 Ralph Peer of Victor Records began recording local musicians in Bristol to attempt to capture the local sound of traditional 'folk' music of the region.

One of these local sounds was created by The Carter family. The Carter Family got their start on July 31, 1927, when A.P. Carter and his family journeyed from Maces Springs, Virginia, to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition for record producer Ralph Peer who was seeking new talent for the relatively embryonic recording industry. They received $50 for each song they recorded.

Since 1994 the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance has promoted the city as a destination to learn about the history of the region and its role in the creation of an entire music genre. Currently, the Alliance is organizing the building of a new Cultural Heritage Center to help educate the public about the history of country music in the region.

Bristol, Tennessee - USA

Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 24,821. It is the twin city of Bristol, Virginia, just across the state line, which runs down the middle of State Street. Along with Kingsport, Tennessee and Johnson City, Tennessee the Bristols form the Tri-Cities. Bristol is probably best known for being the site of some of the first commercial recordings of country music, showcasing Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, and later a favorite venue of the legendary mountain musician Uncle Charlie Osborne. Congress recognized Bristol as the Birthplace of Country Music in 1998. Bristol is the birthplace of Tennessee Ernie Ford. Bristol is the site of a NASCAR short track which routinely sells out more than 160,000 seats twice annually. Tickets to Bristol Motor Speedway and DukesFest, a two day festival showcasing the 1980s television show "Dukes of Hazzard" are highly sought-after. The city is also the home of King College.

Bristol is considered to be the "Birthplace of Country Music" according to a resolution passed by the U.S. Congress in 1998 for its contributions to early country music recordings and influence.

In 1927 record producer Ralph Peer of Victor Records began recording local musicians in Bristol to attempt to capture the local sound of traditional 'folk' music of the region. One of these local sounds was created by The Carter family. The Carter Family got their start on July 31, 1927, when A.P. Carter and his family journeyed from Maces Springs, Virginia, to Bristol to audition for Ralph Peer who was seeking new talent for the relatively embryonic recording industry. They received $50 for each song they recorded. That same visit by Peer to Bristol also resulted in the first recordings by Jimmie Rodgers.

Since 1994 the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance has promoted the city as a destination to learn about the history of Elvis and its role in the creation of an entire music genre. Currently, the Alliance is organizing the building of a new Cultural Heritage Center to help educate the public about the history of country music in the region.

Knoxville, Tennessee - USA

Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the state of Tennessee, behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox CountyGR6. It is also the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area" which is included in the "Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area". As of the 2000 United States Census, Knoxville had a total population of 173,890 with a metro population of 655,400.

Of Tennessee's four major cities, Knoxville is second oldest to Nashville which was founded in 1779. Knoxville also was the state's first capital when Tennessee was admitted into the Union in 1796, in which capacity it served until 1819, when the capital was moved to Murfreesboro. The city was named in honor of the first Secretary of War, Henry Knox.

One of Knoxville's nicknames is The Marble City. In the early 20th century, a number of quarries were active in the city, supplying Tennessee pink marble (actually Ordovician limestone of the Holston Formation) to much of the country. Notable buildings such as the National Gallery in Washington are constructed of Knoxville marble. The National Gallery's fountains were turned by Candoro Marble Company, which once ran the largest marble lathes in the United States.

Knoxville was once also known as the Underwear Capital of the World. In the 1930s, no fewer than 20 textile and clothing mills operated in Knoxville, and the industry was the city's largest employer. Most of the mills were located in the historic Old City. In the 1950s, the mills began to close, causing an overall population loss of 10% by 1960.

Knoxville is also the home of the University of Tennessee's primary campus (UTK), and the city is often referred to as "Knoxvegas" by the UTK student body. The university's sports teams, called the "Volunteers" or "Vols," are extremely popular in the surrounding area. In recognition of this popularity, the telephone area code for Knox County and eight adjacent counties is 865 (VOL). Knoxville is also the home of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, almost entirely thanks to the popularity of Pat Summitt and the University of Tennessee women's basketball team.

As of 2007, the current mayor is Bill Haslam, who defeated Madeline Rogero in 2003. The previous mayor of sixteen years, Victor Ashe, was named United States Ambassador to Poland in June 2004. Ashe was term-limited and could not serve another term.

The first humans to live in what is now Knoxville were of the Woodland tribe, a group of hunters and trappers driven south from the Great Lakes region by climatic changes, probably about 1000 B.C. Their culture eventually gave way to that of the mound builders, whose influence was felt throughout most of the South; a burial mound from this era can be found on the UT campus. The Shawnee and Creek briefly occupied small areas in the state, but little archaeological evidence has been found. By the 18th century, the only native peoples living permanently around what would later be Knoxville were the Cherokee. The Cherokee people called this area Shacomage, or "Place of Blue Smoke."

Early contacts between the European settlers and the Cherokee were fairly cordial, which encouraged colonial expansion into the land west of the Great Smoky Mountains. White's Fort was settled in 1786 by James White, a militia officer during the American Revolutionary War. When William Blount, the territorial governor of the Southwest Territory, moved the territorial capital to White's Fort in 1791, he renamed it Knoxville in honor of Henry Knox, the American Revolutionary War general and Washington's Secretary of War.

One of William Blount's first tasks was to meet with the Cherokee and establish territorial boundaries; this he accomplished almost immediately in the Treaty of Holston, and he believed that he had "purchased" much of what is now East Tennessee when it was signed in 1791. However, the terms of the treaty came under dispute, culminating in continued violence on both sides. Several large Cherokee attacks on Knoxville: 200 Cherokee lead by John Watts marched on Knoxville in 1792, and a second group of Cherokee attacked Covet's Station in 1793. Both attacks were repelled by Knoxville settlers. Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee several times as well. When the government invited the Cherokee's chief Hanging Maw for negotiations in 1793, Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee against orders, killing the chief's wife. Peace was renegotiated in 1794.

Despite these tensions, the Treaty of Holston opened the area to more settlers. Knoxville served as the territorial capital until 1796, when a constitutional convention was held in Knoxville to establish Tennessee as a state. When Tennessee entered the United States in 1796, Knoxville was the first capital of the state until 1815, when the capital was moved to Murfreesboro. On May 28, 1830, President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, requiring all Native Americans to leave their homes and move west of the Mississippi River. Some Cherokees refused to go, and filed a lawsuit against the government to stop this from taking place. However, many of the remaining Cherokee left the Knoxville area at this time in the Trail of Tears.

During the ante-bellum period, the Knoxville and Knox County included plantations, although slavery was not as widespread in East Tennessee as it was in Middle and West Tennessee. This undoubtably contributed to sixty-nine percent of East Tennesseeans voting against secession in 1861. The Greater Warner Tabernacle AME Zion Church, Knoxville was reportedly a station on the underground railroad.

During the American Civil War, the Battle of Campbell's Station was outside Knoxville on November 16, 1863. In that battle Confederate troops led by General James Longstreet unsuccessfully attacked Union forces under General Ambrose Burnside. The next day, the two week long Siege of Knoxville began when Longstreet placed Knoxville under siege. The siege, which culminated in the Battle of Fort Sanders, failed and Longstreet returned with his men to General Robert E. Lee. A separate incident occurred at the Baker Peters House during the Civil War; Dr. Harvey Baker was killed by Union troops.

The Battle of Fort Sanders (precipitated by the Siege of Knoxville, which began on November 17, 1863) was an engagement of the American Civil War fought in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Confederacy had never had effective control of large areas of East Tennessee. There had been little slavery practiced in East Tennessee, partly due to moral opposition to the practice and partly due to the fact that little of the land was suitable to plantation agriculture; pro-Union and Republican sentiment ran high and most East Tennesseans had not been in favor of secession. Therefore, Union forces had little trouble occupying Knoxville early in the conflict.

In 1901, train robber Kid Curry (whose real name was Harvey Logan), a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was captured after shooting two deputies on Knoxville's Central Avenue. He escaped from the Knoxville Jail and rode away on the sheriff's stolen horse.

In 1933 during the Great Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority was founded and headquartered in Knoxville by the U.S. government to help create jobs and attract manufacturing dependent on cheap electricity.

In 1948, the soft drink Mountain Dew was first marketed in Knoxville, originally designed as a mixer for whiskey.

The Headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority, located in Downtown Knoxville, also known as the TVA Twin Towers, were built in the 1970s, and were among Knoxville's first modern high-rise buildings.

Knoxville hosted the 1982 World's Fair, one of the most popular world's fairs in U.S. history with 11 million visitors in attendance, from which the Sunsphere theme structure remains.

In 1999, the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame opened in the city.

Chattanooga, Tennessee - USA

Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in Tennessee (after Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville), and the seat of Hamilton CountyGR6, in the United States of America. It is located in southeast Tennessee on Chickamauga and Nickajack Lake, which are both part of the Tennessee River, near the border of Georgia, and at the junction of three interstate highways, I-24, I-75, and I-59.

The city (downtown elevation approximately 685 feet), which lies at the transition between the ridge-and-valley portion of the Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau, is surrounded by ridges.

The first inhabitants of the Chattanooga area were Native American Indians with sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period, showing continuous occupation through the Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian (900-1650 ce), Muskogean and Cherokee (1776 - 1838 ce) periods. The name 'Chattanooga' is based on the Muskogean term for rock, cvto (chatta), and may refer to Lookout Mountain which, when viewed from Moccasin Bend, appears as a "rock rising to a point."

The earliest Cherokee occupation dates from Dragging Canoe, who in 1776 separated himself and moved downriver from the main tribe to establish Native American resistance (see Chickamauga Wars) to European settlement in the southeastern United States. Occupation of the area by members of the Cherokee Nation dates from 1816 with the establishment of Ross's Landing by later tribal chief John Ross and ended with the forced relocation of Native American Indians from southeastern U.S. states to Oklahoma in 1838. Ross's Landing was one of three large internment camps, or "emigration depots," along the Trail of Tears, the other two being Fort Payne, Alabama and the largest at Fort Cass, Tennessee.

The city is known for the 1941 big-band swing song "Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Glenn Miller, but it has grown significantly since its days as a railroad hub and industrial center. Bessie Smith, a famous blues singer, was also born in Chattanooga.

During the American Civil War on November 23, 1863, the Third Battle of Chattanooga began when Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforced troops at Chattanooga and counterattacked Confederate troops. The next day, the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought near the town. These were followed the next spring by the Atlanta Campaign, beginning just over the nearby state line in Georgia and moving southeastward.

After the war ended, the city became a major manufacturing center and by the 1930s was known as the "Dynamo of Dixie." But the same mountains that provided Chattanooga's scenic backdrop became shrouded by the industrial pollutants that they trapped and held over the community. In 1969, the federal government declared that Chattanooga's air was the dirtiest in the nation. But environmental crises were not the only problems plaguing the city. Chattanooga entered the 1980s with serious socioeconomic challenges including job layoffs, a deteriorating city infrastructure, racial tensions and social division.

In recent years, private and governmental resources have been invested in transforming the city's tarnished image and to gain recognition for a metamorphosis of its downtown and riverfront areas. An early cornerstone of this project was the restoration of the historic Walnut Street Bridge. The Walnut Street Bridge is the oldest surviving bridge of its kind in the Southeastern United States. Efforts to improve the city include the "21st Century Waterfront Plan" - a $120 million redevelopment of the Chattanooga waterfront and downtown area.

In 1935, as well as from 1993 to 1995, Chattanooga hosted the National Folk Festival.

Chattanooga touts its many tourist attractions, including the Tennessee Aquarium, caverns, and heavy development along and across the Tennessee River. In the downtown area are the Chattanooga Choo Choo Holiday Inn Hotel that is a renovated train station with the largest HO model train layout in the United States, the Creative Discovery Museum (a hands-on children's museum dedicated to science, art, and music), an IMAX 3D Theatre, and the newly expanded Hunter Museum of American Art. The red-and-black painted "See Rock City" barns along highways in the Southeast are remnants of a now classic Americana tourism campaign to attract visitors to the Rock City tourist attraction in nearby Lookout Mountain, Georgia. The mountain is also home to Ruby Falls, Craven's House and the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway, a steep funicular railway which rises from historic St. Elmo to the top of the mountain to drop passengers off at the National Park Service's Point Park and The Battles for Chattanooga Museum (formerly known as Confederama), a quirky diorama that details the Battle of Chattanooga. From the military park, visitors can enjoy the panoramic views of Moccasin Bend and the Chattanooga skyline from the mountain's famous "point" or from vantage points along the well-designated trail system. Just outside Chattanooga, the Raccoon Mountain Reservoir, Raccoon Mountain Caverns and Reflection Riding Arboretum and Botanical Garden boast a number of outdoor and family fun opportunities, while the Ocoee River, host to a number of events from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, features rafting, kayaking, camping and hiking. Back in Chattanooga, smaller tourist attractions include Lake Winnepesaukah amusement park, Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park, Bonny Oaks Arboretum, Cherokee Arboretum at Audubon Acres and Cherokee Trail Arboretum.

Guntersville, Alabama - USA

Guntersville is a city in Marshall County, Alabama, and is included in the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city is 7,395. The city is the county seat of Marshall County.

Warrior, Alabama - USA

The community was named for the Warrior Coal Fields, which opened in 1872. Its name was originally Warrior Station.

Rickwood Caverns is loacated just north of Warrior