Blacksburg, VirginiaThen and Now

In 1951, Robert Giles arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia as a freshman in the Corps of Cadets at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, then known as V.P.I., now know as Virginia Tech.

. In 1951, Mills Everett arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia as a new employee of the Radford Arsenal. They met in the late 1960s when Bob Giles and his family moved into the house across the street from Mills Everett and his family.

In June, 2009, Mills Everett andBob Giles took a look atBlacksburg Then and Now.

Following are photographs of Blacksburg, Virginia featuring sites present in 1951 that are stillpresent today.

Mills Everett c. 1946 and Robert Giles, c. 1953

The southern town limit was at the intersection ofAirport Road and Main Street (Route 460).

Looking north from Blacksburg’s southern limit at the intersection of Airport Road and Main Street is a similar scene but now one with more cars and a wider street.

The northern edge of the Blacksburg, Virginia town limit was near the Radford Brothers Grocery Store, now the YMCA building.

The Armory was at the edge of the Virginia Tech campus.

The former National Bank of Blacksburg (corner of Main Street and Roanoke Street) was a bustling place in 1951.

Former National Bank at Main and Roanoke Street, Blacksburg, Virginia looking eastward on Roanoke Street.

At another corner, at Main and Roanoke, was the Center Drug Store but now is remodeled and houses Capone’s Jewelry.

United States Post Office, Main Street, Blacksburg, Virginia.

Boudreaux’s Restaurant on Main Street was once the Farmers and Merchants Bank.

The Campus Street and Main Street corner in Blacksburg, Virginia has changed greatly, but the Sharkey’s corner, across from what was the Corner Drug Store, now Moe’s, once a hotel, has the same appearance.

The iron fence across from the restored Lyric Theatre either fenced the Town of Blacksburg out…or the Virginia Tech students in.

The Lyric Theatre, opened in 1930, was the place to see and be seen.

The former train tracks of The Huckleberry Railroad (Blacksburg to Roanoke) are under the photographer at a place wherehitch-hiking toward eastern Virginia and other points was common.

The Main Street hitch-hiking corner for Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets and others in Blacksburg, Virginia, at Main and Roanoke Street (the view is westward). The Bank building here on South Main was not built. A white house to the left, no longer present, was Dr. Boatwright’s first office.

Rose’s 5 & 10 Cents Store – view of side entrance – occupied the Plank and Whitsett Building between the Corner Drug Store (now Moe’s) and the Lyric Theatre.

Oliver’s Grocery sStore in Blacksburg, Virginia, now abandoned, was next to a building (removed, where the cars now appear) near the end of the railroad track (no longer present). This was the end of “The Huckleberry,” a short railroad line carrying goods, including the Corps of Cadets to football games.

Typical Appalachian “build-on” architecture is seen on South Main Street, Blacksburg, Virginia, in the Don Kelsey place (downtown across from Starbucks in the present Kent Square Building). The building was owned by the owner of the Lyric and later served many residents. It recently held a retail store selling items of interest to bird watchers.

A house near the town center, formerly Taylor Frames, is on the state historic building registry.

Sanderson Cleaners building, Blacksburg, Virginia, was one of two drycleaners in town.

This corner building above the town center contained a grocery store and served as the bus stop Thousands of bags of luggage weighted the sidewalks and were put on regularly scheduled Greyhound and Trailways buses over many years.

Steps worn smooth by students and others at Hill’s Store near the entrance to Virginia Tech. The former sidewalk is suggested by the rough cement line at the side of the step.

Attractive house, center of town, now Raines Real Estate, on Main Street beside the Hokie House.

One of many churches in Blacksburg, Virginia. Some have burned; many have been replaced as congregations grew.

Mills Everett and Bob Giles, Blacksburg, Virginianeighbors for over forty years.

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Blacksburg Then and Now

Narrative by Mills Everett and Robert Giles

Photographs by Robert Giles, Virginia Tech Class of 1956

Presentation by Catherine Fong, Virginia Tech Class of 2010