Blacksburg, Virginia, was founded in 1798 on a 38-acre tract laid out and deeded by William Black, for whom the town was named. The original town was limited to a sixteen-block area bounded by present-day Draper Road, Jackson Street, Wharton Street, and Clay Street. Blacksburg's town limits were slightly northeast of an earlier frontier settlement dating from 1748 called Draper' s Meadow, near the Duck Pond on the Virginia Tech campus. Smithfield, built in 1773 by William Preston, sits on the original Draper's Meadow site.

In 1851 a Methodist seminary, the Olin and Preston Institute, was founded in Blacksburg; its sole building was finished in 1855, located on a hillside on present-day Main Street between College Avenue and the Mall. The Olin and Preston Institute, always struggling economically, was closed during the Civil War, and after the war it was reopened as the Preston and Olin Institute. Several years later the trustees of the Methodist school entered the competition for the Morrill land grant funds and--against sizeable odds--won. The new Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, now Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, was founded in 1872.

Blacksburg and Virginia Tech have grown together. Now celebrating the town's Bicentennial (as well as the 250th anniversary of the Draper's Meadow settlement), interest in the town's history and development continue's to grow. Researchers and those who simply want to know more about Blacksburg's history alike can find a wealth of information on the history of the town in the Virginia Tech Libraries.

A guide to resources on Blacksburg's history in the University Libraries was compiled in 1991 by Dorothy H. Bodell of the Cataloging Department and Catherine Wingfield-Yeatts of the Special Collections Department,

In 1797 William Black donated 38 acres of land for a town which was incorporated the next year with 2 dozen families. In 1850 the population (US Census) was 333. In 2000 it is the largest "Town" in Virginia with a diverse population of 39,050. The area is 12,000 acres. The population was reported to be 34,590 in 1990, 13% more than in the 1980 census. The population seems likely to grow at one % per year for many years. The University has about 25,000 students. In 1995, 50% of the land was undeveloped.

A verbal history of the housing development has been obtained from the developer,of the neighborhood, Mr. Pandapas . Related verbal history has been obtained from:

• A conversation with Beulah and T. Arno Bowers, early residents, Saturday, January 20, 2001
• Mrs. Susan Roberts, and
• a note "Rose Avenue Reunion in Tampa: 1999 ."

(Planned Actions throughout the Plan Supplement are presented in boldface.)

We plan to continue to add to to the history at an Internet site.

Our planned actions are as follows:

1. to acquire funds for publishing this history
2. to develop a system or procedure for recording the history of the area
3. to develop a tape collection (or documents) of verbal history of residents of the neighborhood
4. to investigate the full range of advantages and disadvantages of becoming designated as an Historic Area and to vote on such designation.