Virginia Trivia & Tidbits
Looking for Virginia trivia? Try our list Virginia little know facts, tidbits and trivia.
—James Edward Allen Gibbs, a farmer from Raphine, patented the first chain-stitch, single-thread sewing machine in 1857. Gibbs named his farm Raphine after a Greek word meaning “to sew.” The town later adopted the name.
first appeared: 5/4/2008
—Wolf Trap National Park in Vienna (pop. 14,453) is the only national park dedicated solely to the performing arts. About 100 performances are staged at the park annually.
first appeared: 3/9/2008
—The long arm of the law could apply to Norfolk Sheriff’s Deputy George Bell, 50, who stands 7-foot-8 and is the tallest man in the United States. Bell wears shirts with 45-inch sleeves, pants with a 43-inch inseam, and size 19 shoes. Bell has played basketball for the Harlem Wizards and the Harlem Globetrotters.
first appeared: 2/24/2008
—Sweet Briar College, situated near Lynchburg in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, was ranked the No. 1 “Most Beautiful Campus” in the Princeton Review’s 2008 college guidebook.
first appeared: 2/10/2008
—The 40-acre Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond began as the Lakeside Wheel Club for bicyclists. The garden was built in the 1880s by millionaire and horticulturist Ginter, a founder of the American Tobacco Co.
first appeared: 1/27/2008
—Built in 1902 with a camelback-truss design, the Clarkton Bridge that spans the Staunton River was slated for demolition, but concerned citizens protested and the bridge since has been restored and dedicated in 2005 as a pedestrian bridge. The bridge connects the counties of Halifax and Charlotte.
first appeared: 1/13/2008
—The National Veterans Wheelchair Games, begun in 1981 in Richmond, is the largest annual wheelchair sporting event in the world, attracting more than 500 athletes in 2006. Participants are honorably discharged veterans of the armed forces who have a disability that requires use of a wheelchair.
first appeared: 12/30/2007
—Occupying 14 no-frills warehouses across four city blocks in Farmville (pop. 6,845), Green Front Furniture Co. is a one-of-a-kind furniture- and carpet-buyer’s bonanza begun in the 1960s by Richard Cralle Jr.
WEST
first appeared: 12/2/2007
—Comedian Soupy Sales, host of the 1960s The Soupy Sales Show, was born Milton Supman in 1926 and grew up in Huntington (pop. 51,475). His brothers were nicknamed Hambone and Chicken Bone and he was Soup Bone, which became “Soupy.” He chose “Sales” after a comedian by that name.
first appeared: 12/2/2007
—Amelia County (pop. 11,400) is named for Princess Amelia Sophia Eleanora, daughter of King George II of England, and was created by a legislative act in 1734.
first appeared: 11/18/2007
—Built in 1901 across the Staunton River to connect the counties of Charlotte (pop. 12,472) and Halifax (pop. 37,355), the Clarkton Bridge was closed to traffic in 1998 and headed for demolition when citizens rallied and saved it. The restored bridge reopened in 2005 as part of a recreational trail.
first appeared: 11/4/2007
—The Pamunkey Indian Museum on the Pamunkey Reservation in King William County (pop. 13,146) and the Monacan Indian Living History Village at Natural Bridge are among 24 sites on the Virginia Indian Heritage Trail, which portrays 10,000 years of history of American Indians in the Old Dominion.
first appeared: 10/21/2007
—In 1958, Mildred Jeter, a black woman in Caroline County (pop. 22,121), dared to break the law by marrying Richard P. Loving, a white man. The Lovings were convicted under a law banning racially mixed marriages, but a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 overturned laws prohibiting interracial unions.
first appeared: 10/7/2007
—Fans of the blockbuster movie Dirty Dancing can visit the native stone Mountain Lake Hotel in Pembroke (pop. 1,134) to see where scenes from the movie were filmed in 1986.
first appeared: 9/30/2007
—The oldest living Kentucky Derby winner is Genuine Risk, 30, who is still frisky and living in retirement at Newstead Farm in the rolling hills of Upperville. Genuine Risk won the derby in 1980.
first appeared: 9/9/2007
—Michael Wardian of Arlington set a Guinness World Record for fastest marathon while pushing a baby stroller (holding his infant son, Pierce Miler) by running 26.2 miles in 2 hours, 42 minutes and 21 seconds at a marathon in Frederick, Md., in May.
first appeared: 8/26/2007
—The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, a bestselling romance novel written in 1908 by John Fox Jr. and adapted to the stage by Clara Lou Kelly, is Virginia’s official outdoor drama and is performed in Big Stone Gap (pop. 4,856), the hometown of Fox.
first appeared: 8/12/2007
—A $2.1 million reconstruction of George Washington’s whiskey distillery on his Mount Vernon (pop. 28,582) estate opened in March on the same site where it was located in 1799. Archaeologists uncovered the foundation of the distillery in 1999.
first appeared: 7/29/2007
—The story of the first Civil War battle of ironclad ships is told at the USS Monitor Center in The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News. The $30 million center includes a full-scale replica of the USS Monitor and several hundred artifacts.
first appeared: 7/15/2007
—Henry Clay, born in 1777 in Hanover County, has the dubious distinction of losing the presidential election three times as a candidate for three different political parties: the Democratic Republican Party in 1824, the National Republican Party in 1832 and the Whig Party in 1844.
first appeared: 7/1/2007
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