Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 8, 1993 TAG: 9303080073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HISTORICAL HUCKSTER
Not all the 150 people who gathered in Timber Ridge, near Lexington, last week were there solely to observe the bicentennial of Sam Houston's birth.\ Charles McKendree Jr., a real estate broker who lives within view of the Houston birthplace, was advising Texans, Virginians and anyone else with an ear that he was ready to part with a piece of history.
McKendree owns a six-acre pasture next to the Houston wayside, to U.S. 11 and to Interstate 81. McKendree notes that it has access to public water, the land perks well and the nearby roads have high traffic counts.
For just $85,000, this open land within a hair's breadth of history could trade hands.
Will the Sam Houston Family Restaurant/truck stop featuring Indian gifts, fireworks and pecan logs be close behind?
Smooth crossing
To proclaim that one\ railroad crossing in Roanoke is the bumpiest, most rutted, most unpleasant of all would be to throw down the gauntlet and invite challengers.
Suffice, then, to say that the Second Street crossing downtown, between the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Shenandoah Avenue Northwest and the Virginia Museum of Transportation on Norfolk Avenue Southwest, is the worst.
Three rails cross Second Street there, and crossing them has long been akin to crossing a stormy North Atlantic in high seas. Passengers were thrown about inside vehicles as the rutted crossing rocked cars and trucks loose of their springs. Coffee was spilled onto laps. Teeth were chipped.
Last week, that changed. The crossing closed for a few days and when it reopened, with new asphalt and new timbers, it was smooth as a baby's cheek.
The crossing's condition will someday be moot. The city plans to eventually bridge the crossing with a 683-foot elevated roadway.
Putting Roanoke on the map
You don't think\ Roanoke has an identity problem?
Then you must not have seen the March issue of Kiwanis, the official magazine published by\ Kiwanis International.
The magazine devotes almost a page and a half to the Explore Park, and touts the role that the Roanoke Kiwanis Club has played in raising money to rebuild the park's 19th century farmhouse and laying out its authentic frontier garden.
So what's wrong with that? Nothing . . . Except the 290,000-circulation magazine confuses Roanoke with the island of the same name off the coast of North Carlina.
When Roanoke is mentioned, the magazine says, "there are few students having survived U.S. history class who haven't heard about the settlers who seemingly vanished from their tiny village, a mysterious mark on a tree their only reminder . . . "