It's now called the Mayor's monument, located at the corner of Jefferson and Elm, just inside Elmwood Park.
Not sure what it is? Here:
Looks imposing. Important. The carving on the granite is nearly faded. Parts of it are illegible, other need to be touched and traced to be clearly made out. It dates back to 1893, and the inscription upon the side reads "an Industrial Monument to Mark the Progress of the City of
Roanoke."
However that is only on one face of the stone. Another side lists the population of Roanoke in 1883 as 319 or so, and beneath that - the population in 1893 as about 26,000. Nice touch of history there. Then yet another side lists something all together confusing, bizzare, and seemingly out of place. Taxable Values in 1883 and 1893.
Taxable values? On the Monument to the Progress of the City of Roanoke? Maybe in some fevered dream it might just make sense. But taxable value is something better suited for a business newsletter, or informative booklet - not something one might carve into granite.
Now it stands in Elmwood Park as part of the Mayor's monument - dedicated to those who served. But it was not always there...
It used to be here:
Ok stop scratching your head - this is where Campbell and Norfolk meet across the tracks. Those tracks in the foreground used to belong to the Roanoke & Southern Railway. Yep - we had our own railroad once. All this land - as far as you can see on the right side of the street, all the way down to 8th st. SE. and all the way back to Tazwell SE, it all used to be a park.
Woodland Park.
And so the story begins, The Roanoke Land & Improvement Co. donated acres of land to the city. As part of the donation, a condition if you will, the City agreed to run a wall or a fence of sorts around the perimiter of the park. When the city failed to do as it had promised, the RL&I Co. rescinded the offer and put the property up for sale. This was in 1890.
Samuel Jamison, yep - that Jamison, bought the whole lot. Nearly immediately afterwards, there was erected a 15-foot tall granite column. It was called the "Kimball Tower", in honor of the president of the N&W railway. Think of the "Kimball Tower" as a giant granite "For Sale" sign. A 15' tall sign.
Jamison then placed advertisements in Northern newspapers advertising 150 lots only 3 blocks from the downtown market. (sound vaguely familiar?) Just look for the big granite pillar to survey the land.
I went and surveyed for myself.
It's all upslope until you get to (what is now) Church SE. Houses now
line the ridge. Now, as you can imagine - a park the city had for roughly 8 years.. the residents had grown somewhat attached to it. And then to have it sold out from under them, because the city failed to fence it in... well - one need look no further than the Roanoke Herald of the day:
“It was reserved for a park,” the editor of The Roanoke Herald fumed, “and offered free to the City Council, who, for motives of mistaken economy, regarding the expense of development as too great, refused the offer of a property which is today worth a prince’s ransom.”
And yet, for the $180,000 that was made on the sale of lots from Woodland Park - nary a home was built upon it. In 1901, when someone did attempt to build upon the lot they owned, a mistaken city engineer denied the build because "the city still owned the property."
The "Kimball Tower" stood on the ridge of Woodland Park, and stood as the only structure on the land for quite some time. This was the beginning of Roanoke's unfortunate luck with real estate. When it was realized the granite "for sale" sign was not exactly working, the esteemed men of the Woodland Park Land Company had the idea to repurpose the monument rather than move it. A new inscription was added:
“Erected 1893 by P. L. Terry, F. J. Kimball, S. W. Jamison, & Jos. H. Sands as an
Industrial Monument to Mark the Progress of the City of Roanoke. Charted 1882.”
This inscription is wrong. The monument was erected prior to 1893, was not a monument to mark anything, and the inscription itself was added post-1893.
This monument to Land Speculation sat ignored and unknown through nearly 90 years of history. When it was rediscovered, it was decided to move it to its current location at Elmwood Park (irony? Elmwood was owned by the Terry family pre-1911). And as we all know, P.L. Terry was behind a famous building which once stood on Jefferson and Campbell - but not for long. That's a story for another time.
So lets examine what we have here, sitting in the heart of downtown. A 15' granite marker, a giant "for sale" sign for land which, after the speculation boom crashed in 1893 the land values had sunk to levels lower than pre-boom, was abandoned. Even the few houses on Church SE (and you should know this folks) are built upon the very same land as the former City Cemetary. To this day, land values upon the ridge that overlooks 581 and downtown are 1/10th of those nearly anywhere else in town.
But lets face what this really means. The city was unable to decide to build a wall, and we lost a valuable park. Then, the real estate company sold the land in lots, which were undeveloped, and to this day, remain de-valued. The members of the real estate company, who were also some of the foremost citizens of Roanoke and figure large in the history of this city, decided to cover their tracks and add a statement to the stone. One which they hoped would make the marker seem like what it was not. It sat for 89 years ignored and forgotten in weeds, trash, and overgrowth - known only to a few who inhabited that area. Then it was brought to Elmwood Park, which remains one of the city's nicest parks - and yet the source of much contention from the citizens.
The Mayor's monument might well be the curse of Roanoke. A relic of the past which still haunts us today. Perhaps an omen of what is to become should the speculative real estate dealings continue? Perhaps the legacy of a city unwilling to admit its past? Or perhaps just a 1 1/2 story slab of granite that really means nothing when it all comes down to it.
But regardless, the Mayor's Monument in Elmwood Park has a very checkered past, and a fragile future as time wears the etchings off the stone. One day in the not-too distant future the words will be gone off the stone, and the memory of what the stone stood for will be replaced by the concept of the Mayor's Monument.
So there you have it, the curse of Roanoke brought to light. Allright, maybe its not a curse, but certainly not something I would want representing the city in any way. Not without a full explanation of who, what, where, when, why, how, and how it will not happen again.
Did the city learn from it's mistake? The existence of Elmwood Park seems to lend a nod in the direction of a positive educational experience. But Elmwood does not a city make, the future is the only test of how much the city has learned.
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