Irish Creek flows almost fifteen miles from the headwaters near the crest of the Blue Ridge to the bridge that carries cyclists along Route 76. A carved sign on the bridge, with the name of the creek, and a sign designating \u201cIrish Creek Road\u201d are, like many markers along the rural sections of Route 76, brief glimpses of communities that once populated these regions. The name of the creek suggests a connection back to an earlier era, where this region of the country was settled by descendants from the British Isles. The crossing is also suggestive of another dimension of Route 76 across much of Virginia: the enduring impact of assumptions, prejudices, and expectations associated with Appalachian cultures, communities, and traditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Welcome to episode 16 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the point where Route 76 crosses Irish Creek, located just over 250 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and nearly 300 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders 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 narrator, Tom Ewing, and this episode was substantially researched by Grace Kostrzebski. 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
The Transamerican Bicycle Route 76 includes more than 600 miles through the region commonly called Appalachia, more than 10% of the entire transcontinental distance. The eastern starting point is located where the route ascends to the Blue Ridge Parkway, west of Crozet and Charlottesville, about 200 miles from Yorktown. The western starting point is more difuse, but is probably best located in central Kentucky, where the hills in the eastern section gradually flatten towards the Illinois border. More than three hundred and fifty miles in Virginia, almost two-thirds of the route in the state, would certainly be considered part of Appalachia. Along many of these stretches, including the section that crosses Irish Creek, cyclists may ride for ten, twenty, or even thirty miles without encountering businesses, stoplights, or services, but rather will see only forests, meadows, farms, and the occasional home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cyclists riding across the United States for almost fifty years have combined their appreciation for the natural beauty and friendly people of Appalachia with concerns about obvious poverty, including abandoned homes, shuttered businesses, and neglected farms. When American Reid Miller completed the Bikecentennial in 1976, he offered this recollection of this section of the route: \u201cHeading into Appalachia, our expectations of seeing simple frame houses, moonshine and stills, banjos and porch swings and tiny farms nestled in the bottom of \u2018hollers\u2019 are fulfilled.\u201d Forty years later, the standard history of America\u2019s Bicycle Route describes the route through \u201cthe \u2018holler\u2019 country of Appalachia\u201d using terms that echo stereotypes about the region: \u201ctar paper shacks, house trailers, and barking dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stereotypes of Appalachia were well established in late twentieth century America, when cyclists from elsewhere in the country or even internationally encountered this region in person during the Bikecentennial. Television shows such as Davy Crockett and Beverly Hillbillies brought contrasting images to American audiences in the 1950s and 1960s: the former depicted the Appalachians as rugged yet simple outdoorsmen while the latter emphasized cunning as well as simplicity. The 1972 movie, Deliverance, about outsiders encountering Appalachia, disseminated a perception of mountain people threatening those who ventured away from their comfortable urban or suburban life. By the time cyclists riding the Bikecentennial entered Appalachia, either after nearly 3000 miles riding across the country for eastbound riders or 200 miles riding across Virginia for westbound riders, they were prepared to see an evironment, homes, business, and people that fulfilled these stereotypes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These perceptions of Appalachia began almost two centuries ago when authors and academics interested in the folk stories of white Americans visited the mountains in search of evidence that ancient Anglo-Saxan culture survived in remote regions of the Americas. Authors made careers out of publicizing the shock and awe of their encounters with Appalachia. Anne Royall was one of the most influential authors on Appalachian culture whose many writings strongly informed the public\u2019s opinion of Appalachia. Born in a frontier town in Pennsylvania in 1769, Royall\u2019s family moved many times before eventually ending up in western Virginia (which included parts of the current state of West Virginia). Although her family was very poor, her father emphasized education and Royall was an eager reader of all kinds of material. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a young woman, Royall married a wealthy older man who continued to support her education. When he passed away after just fifteen years of marriage, Royall\u2019s hopes of becoming a wealthy widow were dashed when the family had the will nulified. Royall turned her self-education into a source of income as she began writing for popular audiences. Royall spent the rest of her life traveling across the United States, recording her observations in letters or short journal entries, and then combining them into books devoured by an eager audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Royall\u2019s commercial success is largely owed to her identity as a frontier woman who grew beyond what was typically expected of that role. Royall\u2019s background as someone who grew up in the very same frontier towns she was often describing added credibility to her stories. Most of her contemporaries were posh, formally-educated women who were raised in urban environments. Royall, as \u201cone of their own,\u201d was assumed to have authentic insights into frontier communities. Royall was considered a success story of rural America, because she educated herself, left the farm, and wrote for a predominantly urban audience. But like many writers who came after her, the narrative she fed the rest of the United States was one where she overcame the dangerous, ignorant culture of Appalachia and put it on display for mainstream Americans to ponder with admiration as well as anxiety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A common theme in Royall\u2019s writings were descriptions of the \u201cmelancholy appearance\u201d of small towns, with no sign of industry or enterprise to sustain the community. Buildings are decaying slowly and then collapsing from neglect. By contrast, the people in these towns are hard-working and friendly, but always ignorant of urban manners and fashions, as in this description of Appalachian communities: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here have settled people from the north, the east, and the west\u2026 However refined, however upright, however enlightened, crafty and wicked they might have been previous to their emigration, they have become assimilated, and mutually stand by each other, no matter what the case is, and woe be to the unwary stranger who happens to fall into their hands. I never saw or heard of any people but these, who gloried in a total disregard of shame, honour and justice, and an open avowal of their superlative skill in petty fraud; and yet they are hospitable to a fault, and many of them are genteel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Statements such as these embedded stereotypes of Appalachia into American culture, as indicated in the peristent perceptions that cyclists bring with them as they roll through the valleys of the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last few decades, however, scholars and activists have worked deliberately and strategically to challenge these stereotypes. Helen Matthews Lewis was born in a northeast corner of Georgia in 1924, in a region usually considered part of Appalachia. While in Georgia, Lewis witnessed the cruelties of Jim Crow discrimination, an experience she credits for pushing her towards a life of activism. She attended Georgia State College for Women where she learned from suffragist teachers and became involved in desegregation and pro-union campaigns. Lewis earned a master\u2019s degree in Sociology with a thesis on the parallels between Women\u2019s Rights and Civil Rights. Lewis was barred from a full time faculty position by discriminatory laws against spouses, so she taught part-time and worked in a library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 1960\u2019s, Lewis began to formulate a curriculum on Appalachia with a focus on how oral histories illustrated the persistence of communities across generations. In 1970, Lewis earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Kentucky, and soon she became known as the \u201cgrandmother of Appalachian studies.\u201d Through her academic work, Lewis advocated against the devastation caused by coal companies and for protection of coal mining communities. Lewis left formal academia in 1976 to focus on public education on the pressing social issues of the day: environmental damage left by coal companies, women\u2019s equality, and the legacies of the civil rights movement. Rather than denigrating, dismissing, and mocking Appalachian culture, Lewis used her scholarly work to celebrate communities, condemn environmental destruction, and bring evidence of cultural resilience to the attention of mainstream audiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The battle depicted by Lewis between the people and the corporations is one that has played out constantly since Appalachia was first deemed profitable due to its natural resources. Lewis\u2019s life and work serve as a refutation to Royall\u2019s work and the larger cultural zeitgeist that disregards Appalachia as \u201cignorant\u201d and \u201clazy.\u201d Many small towns in Appalachia today, if one chooses to explore them rather than glance at them, serve as refutations to Royall. These communities work hard to make sure their stories are remembered and that their towns stand for the next generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These perspectives allow for a more complicated history of Irish Creek, one of many Appalachian communities along Route 76 that are just briefly glimpsed by travellers in cars or on bicycles. Initially settled by German Hessians after the American Revolutionary War, this community attracted settlers from the British Isles, including Ireland, and Eastern Europe, including Poland, in the decades that followed. By the late nineteenth century, decades of settlement, farming, and mining had established a viable community along the banks of this winding creek. Like many mountain communities, however, families along Irish Creek survived on subsistence farming and occasional work in tin mines along the mountain ridges. Neither effort allowed for prosperity, as subsistence farming did not generate sustainable incomes and tin mines opened and closed depending on market forces. The South River Lumber Company brought a sense of prosperity for a few decades in the early twentieth century, but the company failed during the Great Depression and all those working at the company lost their jobs. The farms and homes that remain along Irish Creek Road illustrate the long term consequences of subsistence agriculture and unreliable extractive industries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Less than two miles due west of where Route 76 crosses Irish Creek, thousands of vehicles pass by every day on Interstate 81. Cities such as Roanoke, Waynesboro, or Lexington are less than an hour\u2019s drive from the point where Irish Creek flows into South River. The apparent isolation of these rural communities is a product of economic conditions and established perceptions as much as it is a matter of geographical location. Cyclists, as well as all other visitors, would benefit from slowing down, stopping to observe the community, and appreciate the rich history of the people living in these remarkable communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have been listening to episode 16 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the point where Route 76 crosses Irish Creek, located just over 250 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and nearly 300 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders 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 narrator, Tom Ewing, and this episode was substantively researched by Grace Kostrzebski. This podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte, in collaboration with Project Director Tom Ewing. To learn more about this project, please visit our website or follow us on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Irish Creek flows almost fifteen miles from the headwaters near the crest of the Blue Ridge to the bridge that carries cyclists along Route 76. A carved sign on the bridge, with the name of the creek, and a sign designating \u201cIrish Creek Road\u201d are, like many markers along the rural sections of Route 76, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":262,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-331","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/331","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=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/331\/revisions\/332"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bike76-va.vt.domains\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}