For your most treasured occasions, or simply the need to get away from it all, celebrate at the Grand Ole Lady and enjoy being pampered by our elegant hospitality. Set against the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, our packages will create memories for years to come.
Train Lovers Package Includes:
- Accommodations overlooking the railroad
- Breakfast for two in The Regency Room
- Railroad History Book
- Railroad History Coffee Mug
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 Beginnings of the Railroad in Roanoke
In the 1850s, Big Lick became a stop on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) which linked Lynchburg with Bristol on the Virginia-Tennessee border.
After the American Civil War William Mahone, a civil engineer, was the driving force in the linkage of 3 railroads, including the V&T, across the southern tier of Virginia to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. However, the Financial Panic of 1873 wrecked the AM&O's finances. After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&O was purchased by E.W. Clark and Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad then under construction up the valley from Hagerstown, Maryland. The AM&O was renamed Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W).
Frederick J. Kimball, a civil engineer and partner in the Clark firm, headed the new line and the new Shenandoah Valley Railroad. For the junction for the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk and Western roads, Kimball and his board of directors selected the small Virginia village called Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. Although the grateful citizens offered to rename their town "Kimball", at his suggestion, they agreed to name it Roanoke after the river.
After Kimball combined two of his railroads, he built his vision of a comprehensive community with the Hotel Roanoke as its grand centerpiece. Travelers coming to the city or breaking a tiring rail journey made the Hotel Roanoke their haven. In 1882, The Hotel Roanoke was built. It officially opened on Christmas Day, 1882.
As the N&W brought people and jobs, the Town of Roanoke quickly became an independent city in 1884. In fact, Roanoke became a city so quickly that it earned the nickname "Magic City."
The rest is history.
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