The Virginia Room Digital Collection includes photographs, oral histories, books, pamphlets and finding aids to items in the Virginia Room. Continue to check back for new additions.
The Salem Baptist Church was organized in 1870 and dedicated their sanctuary at the corner of North Broad Street and College Avenue in 1873. An educational building was added in 1952. The new sanctuary seen today was erected in 1967.
The architectural drawing gracing this card was done by G.R. Ragan. The new high school, built on Broad Street, opened in 1912, relieving the overcrowded Academy Street school. Additions followed in 1920 and 1923, but the school was heavily damaged…
The impressive home of Salem lawyer Demetrius B. Strouse on Broad Street was built around the turn of the last century. Strouse was involved in numerous civic and religious projects in the Roanoke Valley.
Business leaders in Salem and Roanoke sought to promote their respective communities through a variety of promotional pamphlets. Scenes, such as the one above, were often included to demonstrate progress and prosperity. Salem was labeled as the…
Water Street, later South Broad Street, was one of the earliest streets laid out in the 1802 plot of Salem. Water Street became the dominant center for Salem’s African-American community.