ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200056
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County would get six new roadside historical markers under a state proposal to replace missing signs and some that tell less than the full story.
The state Department of Historic Resources is seeking a $200,000 federal grant, complemented with $50,000 from local governments, to replace 290 missing signs and another 70 that cover topics - such as old homes and early European settlers' interactions with Indians - that have been the subject of much research in recent decades.
Montgomery County, which has the most historical markers in the New River Valley, has three missing signs and three candidates for revision.
Last week, the county Board of Supervisors decided to pledge $1,320 of its money to match $5,280 the state is seeking through federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act funds. Each sign costs $1,100 and federal funds will be sought to cover 80 percent of that cost.
The state, which stopped public funding for the signs in 1976, has no program to replace signs that are stolen. Since then, replacements have been paid for through private donations or by local governments.
Before giving his OK, Montgomery Supervisor Nick Rush had one question about the program: "Who decides what tells less than the full story?"
Who indeed? Short answer: state historians, in consultation with local historical societies, experts and published scholarship.
"We feel that we can tell a much better story, a more complete story, and give people the context to help people understand what the subject of the marker is all about," said John Salmon, a staff historian with the Department of Historic Resources.
The initiative has less to do with political correctness - many of the old signs detail "Indian outrages" - than with filling out the picture with latter-day research, Salmon said. "History happened and what happened happened," he said. "It's not a matter of putting a spin on anything, it's just a matter of ... we know more about Virginia history."
The replacement program is only a proposal for now, one the department hopes to win funding for over a two-year period beginning July 1. So no replacement-sign texts have been drafted. Instead, the department's staff flagged possible candidates for revision because of their subjects, particularly Indians and old homes.
Virginia started the roadside sign program in 1926 in response to the beginnings of automobile tourism. Some of the signs date back to that era.
"We know a vast deal more about Virginia architectural history now," Salmon said. Since the late 1960s, the state has been conducting a survey of the state's architectural and archeological resources and now has compiled a "treasure trove of data" that could be used to update some of the signs, he said.
On Indian-related topics, historians have a much better picture of the tribes that were around in 17th- and 18th-century Virginia and how they interacted with European settlers, Salmon said.
In Montgomery County, the three missing signs include: the Virginia Polytechnic Institute sign east of Christiansburg on U.S. 11 (a sign duplicated west of town); the Draper's Meadow Massacre sign on U.S. 460 south of Blacksburg; and the Montgomery County/Floyd County sign on Virginia 8.
The three candidates for replacement include signs for: Fotheringay, an 18th-century home on U.S. 11/460 on the edge of Shawsville; Ingles Ferry on U.S. 11 about one mile east of Radford; and Fort Vause in Shawsville. All three make reference to attacks on or by Indians.
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