Downtown Tour

As a tour leader and a "passer down" of history, it was an exciting experience. It was interesting and exciting because it was exciting to learn about our history of our town, and that we have people that are "famous" in our town. Plus, I found out things that I never knew before, and places that were once there are now gone down and the buildings are falling in or scary looking. Sharing this information to the 6th graders was fun because they did not know about our town and now they can pass down to generations about our town, so it lives on. Also the 6th graders seemed excited to find out that we had so many more things and that their grandparents or great grandparents were apart of this wonderful time in Roanoke. Being able to pass down this information makes sure that people, for instance, from 2033 know the history from the 1900s of our town, and know that we were something other than just a city named Roanoke. The most interesting thing I learned about Roanoke is that we actually use to have stores! We had a Belks, a bus station, and a hotel! Who knew that we had a hotel or that a bus station was in Roanoke and buses use to stop by? I loved getting to share the many things about Roanoke and how it use to be because we can actually say that at one point and time we had stores and other businesses. We also had someone "famous" who lived in Roanoke and made porcelain/Ella Smith dolls.  And yet them dolls are now worth a million dollars and are known all over the world! I loved spending time and getting to know our town and loved being able to teach it to the younger generation, for them to pass on!