Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9307300422
SECTION: DISCOVER PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I'm going to discuss the mountains and knobs thereof that account for the fact that we live in a valley, which is, not surprisingly, called the Roanoke Valley.
The thing is that hardly anybody knows the names of all the mountains, and that can be embarrassing when people who don't live around here ask you, say, to identify Masons Knob.
You shouldn't feel bad if you can't identify all these dumb mountains. I knew a bank president who commissioned a mural that ran along the windows of his 12th floor office. The mural depicted and identified all the mountains,with their names beneath the drawings.
That way, he could refer people who became nosy about the names of the mountains to the mural. This guy was not dumb. Few of us can afford a mural, however.
But, to the mountains and their names.
We won't bother much with Mill Mountain. Everybody knows that one. There's a big star up there that once inspired a country music trucking song that had to do with Mill Mountain coming in sight on U.S. 460.
One of my favorites, mainly because of its name, is Twelve O'Clock Knob, which overlooks Salem and has a very interesting road over it.
It's said the name came from slaves who worked on a plantation below who figured that when the sun was atop the mountain, it was noon. This meant lunchtime - although they probably called it dinnertime then.
Deedie Kagey wrote a history of Roanoke County recently in which she got rather heavily into the mountains and their names.
Kagey's work shows how confusing mountains can be.
There is Read Mountain that looks down on the northeast section of Roanoke City. It's also called Dead Man's Mountain - something about it resembling a corpse all laid out. Oh yeah. It was once called Mills Mountain - no relation to Mill Mountain.
There is Poor Mountain in the southern part of the valley. It is a very big mountain and was named, they say, because its soil is so poor that nothing would grow on it except for modern antennas of various kinds. Trees at its stop are stunted and twisted by the wind and it offers some great four-wheeling in winter if you don't fear sudden death.
Now, we come to Tinker Mountain, which is also easily recognizable because it overlooks Hollins College. It has a very interesting name history and figures largely in the college's celebration of "Tinker Day," which is nice but not very exciting.
According to Kagey, it was once called Wagon Body Mountain, earlier settlers seeing a resemblance between its shape and an overturned wagon. Wagon Body Mountain. I love it. Those pioneers had imaginations.
(In my youth, I once thought Tinker Mountain was Dead Man's Mountain. I guess it's safe to admit that now.)
But Tinker Mountain it is now and even that name has a unsure origin. It was (a) named for this weird guy who tinkered or repaired things while he lived on the mountain; or (b) for a Tencher family that lived thereabouts.
Bent Mountain in the southern part of the county has always been one of my favorites. The wind up there is very strident also and the apples are great.
It is called Bent Mountain either because the Bent brothers did some surveying up there or because it is kind of bent in the middle. Choose your own solution and don't bother me with it.
You have to love Lost Mountain whether you ever heard of it or not. Is it called Lost Mountain because it is "lost" between Bent and Poor Mountains? I kind of hope not. There must be a more romantic reason.
I think everybody knows about Fort Lewis Mountain in the western section of the county. It was named for Fort Lewis and for Andrew Lewis, the valley's favorite Indian fighter and patriot.
Simple? Nope. Kagey says it once went by other names - such as Deyerles Mountain or Butlers Mountain for people who lived thereabouts.
There are a couple of simple mountains. Catawba Mountain to the north is named for the Catawba Indians and there are no other names as far as I know.
There's Yellow Mountain - let's see, somewhere around Garden City, right? - that was named for the color of its iron ore.
There are knobs. MacAfee, Masons, Stewart - which some people can locate handily.
The valley has a purely suburban mountain called Sugar Loaf because it is supposed to be shaped like a sugar loaf. I'll take their word for it - never having seen a sugar loaf as far as I know. It rises above Virginia 419 and well-established neighborhoods and shopping centers.
Kagey also mentions Green Ridge near Peters Creek Road Northwest, but if you don't mind I'd just as soon not get into that now.
She also mentions Rudells Mountain near Vinton.
I'm tired. Go find that one for yourself.
by CNB