Virginia Trivia & Tidbits - Page 10

Looking for Virginia trivia? Try our list Virginia little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Thousands of migrating hawks can be seen each fall in the Rockfish Gap area of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Volunteers conduct an annual hawk count in Afton near Waynesboro (pop. 19,520).

first appeared: 9/28/2003

Built in 1759, Merchant’s Mill in Occoquan (pop. 759) was the first automated gristmill in the nation. Machinery removed grain from barges and ships, processed it, and returned it to the carriers for shipment to the West Indies.

first appeared: 9/21/2003

The nation’s largest Osage orange tree—60 feet tall and spanning 85 feet—grows at Red Hill at Brookneal (pop. 1,259), the last home of Patrick Henry, the state’s first governor.

first appeared: 9/14/2003

Camp Roosevelt, the first Civilian Conservation Camp (CCC), was established in 1933 in the George Washington National Forest near Edinburg (pop. 813). The federal program employed young men to work on reforestation and other preservation projects.

first appeared: 9/7/2003

Culpeper County (pop. 34,262) was surveyed and plotted in 1749 by 17-year-old George Washington.

first appeared: 8/31/2003

In 1742, William Parks, a Williamsburg (pop. 11,998) printer, published the first cookbook in America, The Compleat Housewife. The book first was published in 1727 in England.

first appeared: 8/24/2003

The only statue for which George Washington posed is displayed in the Capitol rotunda in Richmond. Sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon took measurements and made a mold of Washington’s face for the marble statue.

first appeared: 8/17/2003

Archaeologists believe they have located the 17th-century village of Werowocomoco, headquarters for Chief Powhatan, in Gloucester County (pop. 34,780). Capt. John Smith, who led the 1607 colonization of Jamestown, met with Powhatan and, legend says, his life was spared by Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas.

first appeared: 8/10/2003

Potatoes arrived in America in 1621 in two cedar chests sent by Gov. Nathaniel Butler of Bermuda to Gov. Francis Wyatt of Virginia at Jamestown near Williamsburg (pop. 11,998).

first appeared: 8/3/2003

Six times a year, book lovers trek to the Green Valley Book Fair near Harrisonburg (pop. 40,468). In 1971, Leighton and Kathryn Evans held their first book sale and today the Evans family offers a half million new, but blemished, books at each fair.

first appeared: 7/27/2003

Established in 1776, the Stuart Land & Cattle Co. of Virginia near Abingdon (pop. 7,780) is America’s oldest cattle ranch.

first appeared: 7/20/2003

In 1669, Major Thomas Hoomes built his manor house in Bowling Green (pop. 936) and soon added what is believed to be America’s first horse racing track.

first appeared: 7/13/2003

Opened in 1923, Camp Carysbrook in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Riner near Christiansburg (pop. 16,947) is the state’s oldest girls’ summer camp.

first appeared: 7/6/2003

More than 160 artists work and sell their art in Alexandria at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, a former munitions plant.

first appeared: 6/29/2003

Unthanks Cave in Lee County (pop. 23,589), one of the state’s largest caves with seven mapped miles, is protected by the Nature Conservancy. Rare cave-adapted species of beetles and snails have been discovered there.

first appeared: 6/22/2003

Carver’s Ginger Ale has been bottled in Montross (pop. 315) since 1926.

first appeared: 6/15/2003

The state has the distinction of having opened its entire park system on one day, June 15, 1936. The parks: Douthat in Millboro; First Landing in Virginia Beach; Fairy Stone in Stuart (pop. 961); Staunton River in Scottsburg (pop. 145); Hungry Mother in Marion (pop. 6,349); and Westmoreland in Montross (pop. 315).

first appeared: 6/8/2003

The parade floats are stationary and the people move at American Celebration on Parade at Shenandoah Caverns near New Market (pop. 1,637). The 40,000-square-foot attraction is the resting place for elaborate floats from the Rose Parade and presidential inaugurations.

first appeared: 6/1/2003

Pine Knot, a rustic two-story cottage near Charlottesville (pop. 45,049), served as President Theodore Roosevelt’s getaway from 1905 to 1908. It was a four-hour train ride from the White House.

first appeared: 5/25/2003

John-Boy’s bedroom and Ike Godsey’s store from the television series, The Waltons, are re-created at Walton’s Mountain Museum in Schuyler in Nelson County (pop. 14,445), home of the series’ creator Earl Hamner Jr.

first appeared: 5/18/2003

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