Roanoke

Roanoke, a city of Virginia, on the Roanoke River, 258 miles by rail W. of Norfolk, at the junction of the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk and Western railways. In 1880 it was a secluded hamlet; by 1890 it was grown to a bustling city, with a court-house, opera-house, hotels, churches, gaol, gas and electric lights, large machine-shops, steel and iron works, a rolling-mill, tobacco, spoke, and canning factories, mills, bottle-works, &c. Pop. 16,159.