Transportation Through the Ages
1900–1930’s
Roads were only paths made by walking and from the passage of wagons and buggies. When the first cars came into the area, the roads were “pot-hole after pot-hole.” Sam Bonham told of riding his motorcycle around 1918 to Knoxville, Tennessee, dodging the holes in the road. When it rained, roads were all mud. The Macadam road led from St. Clair’s Bottom to Chilhowie and was built around 1905. H.L. Bonham was instrumental in the development of good roads in Smyth County, Virginia, and served on the commonwealth of Virginia’s Good Road Commission (ca. 1916). In 1911, Mr. Bonham owned the third automobile in the local area for transport, a Cadillac. The first automobile used for farm use was a Ford Model T.
The Carriage House was built to house H.L. Bonham’s first cars.
Marker is at the intersection of Whitetop Road (Virginia Route 107) and Exit 35 (Interstate 81), on the right when traveling north on Whitetop Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
