Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 24, 1990 TAG: 9005250311
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"I've never lived in a small town," he admitted.
Hooker and his wife, Lori, lived in an apartment in Roanoke after they moved from Cincinnati a year ago. In March, they bought a house in the Dillon Woods section of Vinton.
Hooker marvels over the fact that when he contracted to have his driveway paved, his next-door neighbor told him that he had just sold a television set to the paving contractor.
This small-town chumminess may be completely unremarkable to a native Vintonite, but for someone from a big city, where you can live next door to someone for years and not know any more about him than his name, it's extraordinary.
Hooker may not realize that he's living in a place where a citizen who appears at a Town Council meeting may take a reporter aside later and confide that she used to baby-sit the town manager when he was a boy.
It's a place where lifelong resident Matthew Banks, 72, can say: "I don't know everybody, but I think everybody knows who Matthew Banks is."
It's a place where Mayor Charles Hill, who has lived in the town for 25 years, can go to the post office or the bank and recognize most of the faces he sees, Hill said.
It's a place that is still small enough that if you're contemplating doing something you don't want everyone to know about, "you just don't do it," said the aforementioned town manager, George Nester, who has spent all but nine of his 39 years in Vinton.
And yet, every day, almost 19,000 automobiles travel along the town's two main streets. It is the home of several large shopping centers, a major sports and recreation complex, and it has its own industrial park and several large industries.
Tiny Vinton, with a population of nearly 8,000, also is at the center of some of the biggest issues that will affect the Roanoke Valley in the future.
It is the closest urban area to the proposed Explore park. It is near the path of the proposed East Roanoke County circumferential highway. It may almost triple in size if the Roanoke Valley consolidation referendum is passed. And it draws shoppers from the growing Smith Mountain Lake, East Roanoke County and West Bedford County communities.
The town has the strictest animal-control ordinance in the valley, a measure that is expected to halt the spread of rabies; and it is the first Roanoke Valley government to enact a mandatory recycling program.
But most of all, after 100 years of existence, the town of Vinton is finally becoming what a town really should be: a self-sufficient residential and commercial center.
"Vinton's sort of an enigma," Nester said. Unlike most settlements, it was not built at a crossroads, but was merely a small shopping area that sprang up along Virginia 24, just as the railroad boom hit Roanoke.
"It was a place you passed through," Nester said.
The turning point for the town came in the 1960s, when Smith Mountain Lake was filling up and Vinton became a place where, suddenly, lots of people were passing through.
Until that time, Nester said, Vinton was a "bedroom community" for Roanoke. People lived in the town, but until the commercial development that began in the '60s started up, they worked and shopped in Roanoke.
"There was not a whole lot here," when Hill came to town in 1965, he said.
"It used to be a little one-horse town," Banks agreed. His parents moved to Vinton in 1904, and he was born there. "But it's better than it used to be," he added.
Although Banks retired from his job with Norfolk and Western many years ago, he and his wife, Frances, run a grocery store and a beauty shop that are among the town's oldest businesses.
"It's more urban," Nester agreed. And with the commercial development, self-sufficiency has finally arrived.
Residents now can find a large enough variety of products and services within the town "to meet their basic needs," Hill said. Banks said he and his wife almost never shop anywhere else.
With the opening of the industrial park and other businesses, Hill added, Vinton is getting close to being able to create a number of jobs equal to the number of people in the work force.
"There has been more of an evening out," he said.
Despite the changes, all three still like living in the town.
"It's still small enough that you can walk up to somebody and ask how they're doing, and you do it because you really mean it," said Nester. "It's not a formality. There's a sense of genuine interest, something that's lost in a larger community."
Nester said that he has no trouble winning the respect of people who have known him since he was born. "It's great," he said. "It's one of the benefits. They're more comfortable. They know what I'm made of."
Hill likes the fact that although Vinton is still a small town, it is part of a larger urban community since it shares borders with Roanoke and with developed areas of Roanoke County.
"People identify with the town, with the churches, with the area."
"It's a good place to live, a friendly place," Banks said. "It's nice and quiet, it has good schools, and it's good for children."
Some of the biggest changes Banks has seen have come to his own neighborhood, which, thanks to accidents of history, geography and nomenclature, often has been perceived as being somehow separate from the rest of the town.
For almost 100 years, most of the 2 percent of Vinton's population that makes up its black community has lived in a quiet little hollow in the southwestern part of town, bounded by Craig Avenue, Pollard Street, Highland Avenue and Chestnut Street.
In recent years, the neighborhood has been hemmed in by ever-widening highways and commercial development on all sides, that has further served to isolate it. The name of the subdivision hasn't helped much either.
When the Glade Land Co. began selling lots in the area in the 1880s, they called their subdivision "Gladetown," a name that made it sound like a separate community.
But Gladetown is, in fact, one of the oldest parts of Vinton. And the name, Banks said, means no more than the subdivision names "Dillon Woods" and "Briarcliff" do.
Because of all the commercial development, Banks said, heavy rains in 1987 caused major flooding in the area. A group of citizens, led by Banks and others, appealed to Town Council to make improvements to the water, sewer and storm-water management systems.
That work is going on now, Banks said, and should be finished within the year.
Banks is no stranger to getting involved in the community. Besides his appearances at Town Council, he also represents the League of Older Americans at other local meetings. In Vinton, he said, "You can work with the people pretty good."
Donna Proctor, who works in Roanoke as a health educator for the commonwealth of Virginia, also has spent most of her life in Vinton. She left the town 14 years ago after she married her husband, Cary, who also was raised in Vinton. But two years ago, the couple came home.
They moved out of Vinton after their marriage, Proctor said, to a small house in Northwest Roanoke. When they outgrew that house, she said, they bought one in the Hollins area. Two years ago, when they were searching for yet another house, they wanted to stay in Hollins, Proctor said, but they found the house they wanted for the price they wanted back in Vinton.
"It was like coming home after 14 years," Proctor said. Vinton "was very much the same as when I lived there [before]."
The biggest changes in the town, she said, have been the increased traffic, a larger number of businesses and the coming of fast-food restaurants. But, she said, "It still feels like the same sort of town."
Although, at the time, the family would have preferred to stay in North County, she said, "We're glad to be back in Vinton.
"Maybe it was my fault, but I never felt the sense of community in North County as I've found in Vinton."
As for Hooker, he and Lori never planned to live in Vinton, he said. Because he works at General Electric in Salem, they had hoped to find a house in Southwest Roanoke County or in Salem, but they couldn't find what they wanted at a price they could afford.
Hooker said his yard is "too hilly," but he likes the subdivision and the view from his house. And he's discovered that the trip to Salem is "not really that long of a drive."
Vinton, he said, "has kind of given me a town-type feeling. People seem to know each other a little more."
After only two months in Vinton, Hooker said, "Everything I've seen so far, I like really well. I imagine we'll stay here, unless something happens with the job. I think it's a nice area."
by CNB