Backcountry Notes

Click on any image for a larger view.While the exact route of the Great Wagon Road has not been preserved, as such, we know that in Virginia and West Virginia, from the Potomac to the Roanoke Valley, it is either under or parallel to Route U.S. 11.  See The Great Wagon Road -- America's Original "Interstate Highway." The Great Wagon road was overlaid on and expanded from the aboriginal track known as the Great Trading Path and the Warrior Path.  Eventually the road was improved to the point where it could handle automobile traffic and in the 20th century became U.S. 11.  In the process, the road was regraded, straightened, widened, and sometimes relocated and sometimes expanded to three and four lanes.  Thus it is often hard to know whether you are on, or simply driving parallel to, the Great Wagon Road.

Except . . . there are places where you can be relatively certain that you are on the old road.  Sometimes these are loops of roadway left when U.S. 11 was straightened, as in the image above; there are other sections where the old road went through small towns, which are still there but which are skirted by newer by-pass construction.  On main streets of these old towns, built along the original track of the road, you can be fairly confident that you are motoring down the Great Wagon Road.

Above: this old log cabin is located near the main street of Greenwood, Virginia.  To judge from the foliage growing on the walls, it has fallen on hard times.

This well-maintained private residence is located on the main street of Greenwood, Virginia.  The original two-story log cabin has been expanded both to the left and to the right. As is the case with the majority of surviving structures, the original cabin was made with Pike joints.

This "Great Wagon Road" log house has expansions on one side and on the back. Like the other log houses pictured in this article, it has a metal roof.

Another section of "orphaned" roadway, left when U.S. 11 (visible in the background) was straightened and multi-laned.

This log house sits on the main road through Fairfield, Virginia.  It has expansions in the back and on one side.  Note the limestone foundation and the traditional barn-red paint. 

In its day, U.S. 11 was well-traveled both by commercial traffic and by tourists. U.S. 11 was a primary route south to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and the Great Smoky Mountains.  Along the way there were motor lodges, souvenir stores, and attractions such as Natural Bridge.

And there were restaurants like the Pink Cadillac Diner, which still survives near Buchanan, Virginia, owing to its location at an I-81 exit and of course to its pink Cadillac, which you see pictured above. The restaurant is located on a section of road narrow and winding enough to give the feel of the Great Wagon Road. On the right, the official greeter at the Pink Cadillac Diner. Word to the wise: don't go there if you don't like Elvis. The decor, ambiance, and much of the cuisine is retro-1950s, harking back to the heydey of U.S. 11.

Where U.S. 11 crosses the James River, you find the town of Buchanan, Virginia.  Above, town hall.

Merchants along U.S. 11 still cater to the tourist trade, but instead of souvenirs, they sell crafts an antiques in places like the Buchanan building pictured above, a National Register historic structure that holds a warren of rooms created by several additions to the original.

On the main street of Buchanan, Virginia -- more antique houses housing antiques. 

The images in this article were all made in the stretch of U.S. 11 from Staunton, Virginia, to Buchanan, Virginia, a section of U.S. 11 once part of the Valley Pike.  Below Buchanan the road becomes increasingly urbanized and much less photogenic as you approach Roanoke.