West Roanoke / Shaffers Crossing Aerial Image, 1920s or 1930s

[NW Mailing List]

Abram. That’s a great image. Thanks for sharing. Looks to me that the south portion of the roundhouse hasn’t been extended yet. But that means it was taken prior to 1940 which doesn’t narrow things down much. Several locos in storage. Eastern edge goes to about 16th street so it’s hard to tell if West End is still standing at 14th street. Is there a gravity hump? What is the two story building above the south side of the yard just west of the pedestrian bridge at the far right edge of photo?     John Garner

 

From: NW Mailing List [mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 3:16 PM
To: N&W Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: West Roanoke / Shaffers Crossing Aerial Image, 1920s or 1930s

 

The Hagley Museum is the DuPont family's private museum near Wilmington, Delaware, and has a lot of arcane material in its holdings. 

 

Here is the link to Hagley's aerial image of West Roanoke, dated as May 5, 1939.  The general contours of the railroad are about what they are today, but two things caught my eye: 

 

1.  "UN" Tower is just barely visible, just to the southwest of the Round House and above a box car with a light colored roof. 

 

2.  The old Salem Road which, at its crossing with the railroad, gave rise to the name **Shaffers Crossing,** is visible in its original contour on the south side of the railroad right-of-way.   West of 18th Street, this road has for some years been mapped as **Westport Ave.** 

  

https://digital.hagley.org/70_200_11104?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=77effcf81267c461d6db <https://digital.hagley.org/70_200_11104?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=77effcf81267c461d6db&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=12&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=3#modal-close> &solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=12&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=3#modal-close 

 

Due to the amount of open land which is shown in Northwest Roanoke, I believe the Museum's date of May, 1939, may be an error.  Villa Heights (on both sides of New York Avenue) was built up in the early and mid-1920s, and that construction is not shown in this photograph.  Therefore I suggest the photograph may be a decade or more older than as dated by Hagley. 

 

The photo, with my humble little Photoshop edits, is attached as a JPG file. 

 

-- abram burnett, CEO 

Dialectical & Transactional Turnips, LLC 

Walton Wye, Va.  

   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20200617/dd30ac49/attachment-0001.html>