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Town Of Buchanan
History
From its earliest development, the Town of Buchanan, Virginia was a principal crossing of the James River via the "Great Valley Road" and other regional transportation networks. As an early transportation-oriented community, the Town included taverns and ordinares, stables, blacksmith shops, wagon and carriage makers, general merchandise stores to service travelers, teamsters, and producers of goods being sent to external markets from the region.
Transportation routes and changes in modes of transportation have had primary influence on Buchanan's history. People settled in Buchanan because of the Town's location at a major intersection of transportation routes. Commercial and manufacturing enterprises located there because of the Town's advantageous location for transport of raw materials, goods and products. Changes in means of transportation shaped the Town's periods of growth in commerce and manufacturing.
Since the 1740's the area now encompassed by the Town of Buchanan has always been distinguished as the point of intersection between two principal transportation corridors: the great northeast-southwest overland route west of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Pennsylvania and the old Upland south; and the James River, the principal river system of central Virginia that provides and east-west route for transport of goods from Mountain and Valley Region, through the Piedmont, to the Tidewater and Chesapeake Bay.
In the 1740's the earliest trace of the Great Road from Philadelphia to western Virginia first crossed the James River at Looney's Ferry, whose approximate location is marked with an historic highway marker along route 11 west of downtown. Frontier colonial leader and land speculator James Patton obtained lands at the Great Valley Road crossing of the James River in the mid-1740's. His heirs the Buchanans, Boyds and Andersons acquired title to those lands and settled there over the next three decades. William Anderson laid out the town of Pattonsburg on the north side of the James River in 1788 while James Boyd laid out the Town of Buchanan on the south side of the James across from Pattonsburg in 1811. Plats of Buchanan in 1811 and Pattonsburg in 1818 established a grid of streets and enumerated lots that conform in large part with the current tax maps.
Water transport on the James River was improved from Buchanan to Tidewater by 1807 and the two towns became centers for processing agricultural products from southwestern Virginia for transport to Richmond and the Chesapeake. The Virginia General Assembly in 1819 acted to establish warehouses for inspection of tobacco and flour in both towns. River traffic increased in the 1830's with internal improvements that brought a better road system to Buchanan from western Virginia. By the mid-1830's internal improvements resulted in completion of the Cumberland Gap Turnpike from the Kentucky border to central Botetourt County.
By the 1840's Buchanan's buildings included the John Wilson warehouse, store and residence, the Botetourt Hotel and the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, all brick structures which still stand today. By 1851 the James River and Kanawha Canal was completed from Richmond to Buchanan.
From its earliest development, the Town of Buchanan, Virginia was a principal crossing of the James River via the "Great Valley Road" and other regional transportation networks. As an early transportation-oriented community, the Town included taverns and ordinares, stables, blacksmith shops, wagon and carriage makers, general merchandise stores to service travelers, teamsters, and producers of goods being sent to external markets from the region.
Transportation routes and changes in modes of transportation have had primary influence on Buchanan's history. People settled in Buchanan because of the Town's location at a major intersection of transportation routes. Commercial and manufacturing enterprises located there because of the Town's advantageous location for transport of raw materials, goods and products. Changes in means of transportation shaped the Town's periods of growth in commerce and manufacturing.
Since the 1740's the area now encompassed by the Town of Buchanan has always been distinguished as the point of intersection between two principal transportation corridors: the great northeast-southwest overland route west of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Pennsylvania and the old Upland south; and the James River, the principal river system of central Virginia that provides and east-west route for transport of goods from Mountain and Valley Region, through the Piedmont, to the Tidewater and Chesapeake Bay.
In the 1740's the earliest trace of the Great Road from Philadelphia to western Virginia first crossed the James River at Looney's Ferry, whose approximate location is marked with an historic highway marker along route 11 west of downtown. Frontier colonial leader and land speculator James Patton obtained lands at the Great Valley Road crossing of the James River in the mid-1740's. His heirs the Buchanans, Boyds and Andersons acquired title to those lands and settled there over the next three decades. William Anderson laid out the town of Pattonsburg on the north side of the James River in 1788 while James Boyd laid out the Town of Buchanan on the south side of the James across from Pattonsburg in 1811. Plats of Buchanan in 1811 and Pattonsburg in 1818 established a grid of streets and enumerated lots that conform in large part with the current tax maps.
Water transport on the James River was improved from Buchanan to Tidewater by 1807 and the two towns became centers for processing agricultural products from southwestern Virginia for transport to Richmond and the Chesapeake. The Virginia General Assembly in 1819 acted to establish warehouses for inspection of tobacco and flour in both towns. River traffic increased in the 1830's with internal improvements that brought a better road system to Buchanan from western Virginia. By the mid-1830's internal improvements resulted in completion of the Cumberland Gap Turnpike from the Kentucky border to central Botetourt County.
By the 1840's Buchanan's buildings included the John Wilson warehouse, store and residence, the Botetourt Hotel and the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, all brick structures which still stand today. By 1851 the James River and Kanawha Canal was completed from Richmond to Buchanan.