Division Office Roanoke

Tue Mar 2 12:00:26 EST 2021

Good stuff Roger.

You can see the building’s location in this c.1923 aerial view. It’s the last building visible on the extreme right-hand edge of this photo in the upper, right-hand corner. It’s just west of the Huff Mill building and directly across the tracks from the west-end of the Freight Station’s sheds. Has a peaked roof line.

Yes, Park St is now 5th St.

John Garner

From: NW Mailing List [mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 11:05 AM
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: Division Office Roanoke

I was able to find a few drawings of interest related to Park Street and the Division office in the archives.

This drawing is dated 3/21/1888. The Office building apparently had additions over time (the photo from Jimmy shows additions on both the left and right sides).

https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=103314

There is also an article "Fire Destroys Park Street Office" in the March 1934 N&W Magazine.

https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=61458

After some searching I found a drawing showing the location of the building:

https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=199845

>From what I can tell from online maps, the Park Street Bridge became 5th Street?

- Roger Link

On Tue, Mar 2, 2021 at 9:48 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org <mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> > wrote:

    For those of you that didn't read Abe Burnett's post Sunday: "Roanoke - Cloverdale:  Control from UD, Park St, Roanoke, 1929", that same morning I came across a photo on Facebook. Looking at the photo I thought what a nice looking building it was an where exactly could it have been located? The only place that seemed to fit was Park St. However, there was nothing provided with the photo to explain where or when.
    Then, I came across Abe's post which I include in part below.

On 2/28/2021 1:47 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:

The attached article states that the Shenandoah Div Train Dispatcher was at that time located at Park Street, Roanoke.  This is correct.  The Park Street office was located  on the north side of the R/W, immediately east of the Park Street O.H. Bridge, and immediately west of a location known (until the late 1950s) as Huff Mill.  The Park Street office building burned on March 1, 1934. 

The building was a very large two-story frame office building and housed the offices of both the Radford and Shenandoah Divisions, including Superintendents, staff and Train Dispatchers.  I know the Shenandoah Division Train Dispatcher (called "UD") was on the second floor, and I think think the Radford Division  Train Dispatcher (called "R" office, and "KD" message office as well) were also on the second floor.  The article in the Roanoke newspaper the following day describes which entities occupied which portions of the building.  After the fire, UD Office was moved to the freight station and R and KD were moved to the General Office Building. 

The N&W photo archives held a beautiful print of this structure, probably from the Valuation era, which was lettered "Division Office, Roanoke."  My wild theory is that this building was built at the time the Shenandoah Division offices were moved out of the SV/N&W "Union Depot" at Roanoke, and at the time Radford Division office were moved from Central Depot (East Radford) to Roanoke.  But I do not have dates for any of these events. 

-- abram burnett

 Now the photo:

    Now Mr. Harvey, you know the rest of the story!
Thank you Abe!

Jimmy Lisle

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