In June 1976, as cyclists made their way across the country during the Bikecentennial, a ground-breaking ceremony in a small town in the mountains of Grayson County celebrated plans to open the Troutdale Community Health Clinic. The health clinic was built near the intersection of route 16 and route 603, less than a mile from the route followed by cyclists riding the Bikecentennial in the summer of 1976. A few cyclists might have observed this ground-breaking ceremony or the construction of this facility that continued through the summer and into the fall. An article in a regional newspaper included a photograph of the ground-breaking ceremony, a list of speakers representing regional organizations, and the statement that Troutdale had not had professional medical care for nearly fifty years, since the early 1920s. This timing is suggestive of the history of Troutdale, but of small towns more generally, as it reveals a trajectory where the economic growth of the early twentieth century was not sustained in the subsequent decades. A history of Troutdale thus provides a basis for exploring the history of small town America in the century before the Bikecentennial and in the half-century that has followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Welcome to episode 25 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the community of Troutdale, located about 450 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 100 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia. This podcast is a production of Virginia Tech, a public land grant university located in Blacksburg, just three miles from Route 76 in southwest Virginia. I am your host, Tom Ewing, and this podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Troutdale\u2019s growth began in the late nineteenth century with the expansion of key industries and new access to markets through the development of roads and particularly the railway. This history relies on local histories researched and written by community members as well as newspaper reports from key periods of this history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Troutdale\u2019s origins were directly connected to both transportation networks and natural resources. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a small settlement was established along the wagon routes into the Appalachian mountains. The initial settlement included stores to provide goods to travelers as well as homes and farms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A major shift in transportation transformed this community in the early 1900s, as the railroad expanded into the mountains of Grayson county to support the expansion of mining and lumber industries. Railways initiated the \u201cboom town\u201d phase of Troutdale\u2019s history. The Marion and Rye Valley Railway connected Troutdale to Maron. The railroad was later reorganized as the Virginia Southern Railroad. By the end of the decade, trains operated at least twice a day between Troutdale and Marion which allowed connections to neighboring states and across Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Troutdale Trading Company sold goods to community members while also serving as the station for passengers and freight on the railroads. The Troutdale Trading Company sold coffee, sugar, furniture, farm machinery, and countless other goods for consumers and farmers. Manufactured goods were brought to Troutdale by railway, thus decreasing the time and cost of transportation, and then were transported by wagon into more remote farm settlements. In 1908, a new railway station was built to manage increased volume of goods. A warehouse opened to store large volumes of goods brought by train until they could be sold by retail stores and transported to businesses and homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The increase in goods brought growth in population and expansion of economic activity. A general store opened to sell clothing, including women\u2019s dresses inspired by the latest fashion trends in East Coast cities. A post office in one of the stores handled letters and packages for the community. Several hotels opened to provide lodging for those passing through the region on the train, by horseback, or on wagons. The Bank of Troutdale opened in 1906 to provide loans that fueled additional commercial growth and the expansion in buildings. By 1912, Troutdale\u2019s downtown included offices for a doctor, dentist, and lawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first factory opened in Troutdale to manufacture equipment for the expanding network of telegraph and telephone wires. A new factory, owned by the Troutdale Furniture Manufacturing Company, produced tables, chairs, and more while also providing employment to the growing population in the region in all stages of production. In 1917, the Troutdale Furniture Manufacturing Company began production of cabinet phonographs, which continued for several years. During World War I, factories expanded production to meet the demands of the war effort. Women began working in the factories for the first time, taking the place of men mobilized for service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lumber industry was a major factor in economic growth in Troutdale and across this region of southwest Virginia. Lumber companies cut the trees, mills processed the trees into finished lumber, and railways carried the products to factories and construction sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wholesale businesses emerged to collect agricultural produce for transport by railway to urban centers. Thousands of turkeys were processed each fall and packed in ice or placed on open railway cars for shipment to cities along the East Coast, leading to the suggestion that the town be renamed \u201cTurkeydale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first \u201chorseless carriage\u201d appeared in Troutdale in 1909. In the absence of gas stations, the automobile used benzine produced at the furniture factor. The first Model T automobiles reached Troutdale in 1913, soon after mass production of this vehicle transformed transportation in the United States and the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Main Street in Troutdale was a dirt road into the twentieth century, with wooden stepping stones allowing pedestrians to cross safely from wooden sidewalks on either side of the road. Oil burning lamps were installed in 1911. Even as the railway made transportation of goods and people faster and easier, the roads were often impassable due to mud in the winter and spring and dust in the summer. In 1912, a \u201cGood Roads Rally\u201d held on the school grounds featured a brass band, speakers from adjacent counties, and free food for those attending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Snavely\u2019s Photography Gallery began operating by 1909 and offered professional services to the community for a decade. Several moving picture theaters opened in the 1910s and continued to show silent films through the 1920s. In the summer, live action shows performed on open railway platforms would provide entertainment for town residents near the railway station. In 1917, the Mighty Haag Circus and the Great Redpath Chautauqua featured performances in Troutdale. An ice cream parlor using ice harvested from frozen streams provided refreshments during hot summer months. A soda pop factory opened in 1908 and produced varied flavors until the growth of national brands put local bottling companies out of business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One room schools were established in the late nineteenth century to educate the children of community residents. By the early twentieth century, a new school building was constructed to educate children of all ages. The first high school graduating class included two boys in the spring of 1916; both boys enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Troutdale News began publication in 1907 and continued under various titles to publish for the next decade. Churches began to offer services in the late 1800s, and new buildings were constructed as the town grew in the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The growth and prosperity of Troutdale was illustrated in a 1913 travel account published in the regional newspaper, the Roanoke Times. The traveler praised Grayson county as \u201ca fertile land of milk and honey,\u201d while Troutdale was called \u201ca typical mountain village, with about two hundred inhabitants, a bank, several stores, and a commodious new two story high school building,\u201d with pianos and other modern equipment. The Marion Rye railway line was described as \u201ca marvel of engineering skill,\u201d with winding steep grades and double reverse curves. The current roads were at times indistinguishable from creek beds, but new and improved roads were already being surveyed and staked out, thus promising improved transportation in the future. The article concluded with a glowing description of Grayson County as \u201cfast coming to the front, is already there. Fine schools and churches, happy and contented people, far above the average in wealth; virgin forests, iron ore, limpid streams full of fish.\u201d The schools sent many graduates to the leading universities in the state, and many returned to their homes to contribute to economic growth. Yet even with these glowing comments, this article\u2019s headline confirmed a common perception of this region, as it promised a \u201cglimpse at one of the pauper counties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, the decade of the 1910s marked the high point in Troutdale\u2019s development. The US census listed the Troutdale population as 431 in 1910 and 636 in 1920, a 50% increase in just 10 years. This increase is particularly notable because the population of Grayson county actually decreased slightly from 1910 to 1920, suggesting that much of the population increase in Troutdale occurred as people moved from rural communities into the town to take advantage of new employment opportunities. Local historians report an even larger population, as much as 2000, beyond the relatively small boundaries of the town\u2019s corporate limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The year 1920 also brought economic problems with long lasting consequences. A sizable order for furniture for the island of Cuba was canceled following a sugar crop failure on the island. The finished furniture in the factory and warehouse could not be sold and thus the company could not repay loans to the Troutdale Bank. A run on the bank caused it to close in early 1921, leading to the demise of both the furniture factories. A new bank, First National, was opened in 1923, yet the lasting damage of the Troutdale Bank failure could not be fully remedied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crisis in sales was compounded by a shortage of lumber and rising prices for transportation on railways. New factories were not created to replace the businesses that had failed. The lumber mill in Fairwood ceased operations and the mill closed down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Improvements in roadways in Appalachia redirected traffic to larger cities and towns at the expense of more remote communities like Troutdale. In the 1930s, the traffic on the railway had declined to such an extent that the tracks were removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Troutdale High School\u2019s final graduating class finished in 1942. Schools once central to the development of this community have been lost over time. Elementary and middle school students in Troutdale now attend Grayson Highlands School, about five miles to the south, while older students attend Grayson County High School, almost twenty-five miles to the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The population of Troutdale would gradually decline during the twentieth century. By the 1970s, when the Bikecentennial route brought cyclists through the community, the population of Troutdale was less than 250 people, just one-third of the total sixty years earlier. The population declined even further, and by the 2020 census, only 140 people were registered for the Troutdale population, one-quarter of the more than 600 people registered a century earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bikecentennial guide prepared for the 1976 cyclists listed a population of 209 for Troutdale, with a grocery store and camping. Navigation maps for 2024 do not show any commercial businesses along the Transamerica route as it passes through Troutdale. In fact, the closest gas stations, according to navigation maps, are now located almost twenty miles away, near the interstate highways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The changes in twentieth century Troutdale were reflective of both broader patterns in American rural society as well as distinctive conditions in the highlands of southwest Virginia. Economics built on extraction of natural resources, such as the lumber, are vulnerable when the natural resource is depleted to the point where extraction is no longer possible or cost effective. When the accessible trees were all cut down, the resources necessary to run the mill or supply the furniture factories were no longer available and these businesses were not viable. Small town production also suffered from regional and national competition. As industries grew elsewhere in the region, including central Virginia and western North Carolina, small local factories were unable to compete and gradually had to close down operations. The furniture factories were the most important industries to close, but ancillary businesses that supplied them with goods and services or that served the growing population also failed. Finally, the fact that local businesses were dependent on a single bank meant that both the bank and the businesses were vulnerable to a self-reinforcing cycle of decline: as demand for goods decreased, businesses lost income, and thus could not pay back loans; as the economy and workforce shrank, businesses and people took their limited savings out of the bank; as the bank lost capital, it had to call in loans and suspend payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As cyclists ride along rural roads now, in Virginia and across the United States, they will see evidence of how once thriving communities have been shaped by the decline of local businesses and the loss of population. In addition to shuttered businesses or abandoned buildings, the evidence of these changes can also be seen in the limited availability of essential services. As noted in the introduction, when Troutdale was growing in the 1910s and 1920s, it had doctors and dentists to service the local community. Five decades later, in the summer of 18976, reports about the ground-breaking for the Troutdale Health Clinic noted that the community had been without doctors or dentists for four or more decades. Five decades later, as the nation looks to celebrate 250 years since independence, Troutdale once again has no health services in the main part of the town. A new community health center, located about five miles south of Troutdale, includes a nurse practitioner and a licensed psychologist while offering prescription services. Residents of Troutdale as well as visitors must travel to secure all kinds of essential services, including schools, groceries, and especially health care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have been listening to episode 25 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the community of Troutdale, located about 450 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just under 100 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia. This podcast is a production of Virginia Tech, a public land grant university located in Blacksburg, just three miles from Route 76 in southwest Virginia. I am your host, Tom Ewing, and this podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte. To learn more about the stories in this episode, visit our website or follow us on social media, all accessible for the homepage for this podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In June 1976, as cyclists made their way across the country during the Bikecentennial, a ground-breaking ceremony in a small town in the mountains of Grayson County celebrated plans to open the Troutdale Community Health Clinic. The health clinic was built near the intersection of route 16 and route 603, less than a mile from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":281,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-310","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/310\/revisions\/312"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}