1896 Map of Hillsville

About this map

Hillsville serves as the central hub of this late-19th-century reconnaissance survey, which captures the industrial landscape of the Virginia-North Carolina borderlands before modern infrastructure reshaped the Blue Ridge. The region's early economic engine is visible through a concentration of ironworks such as Radford Furnace, Barren Spg. Furnace, and Ivanhoe Furnace, alongside the Lead Mines near the Norfolk and Western RR. Transportation in this era relied heavily on the New River's crossings, documented here through a series of named points including Jackson Ferry, Howards Ferry, and Thorne Ferry. To the south, the map details the transition into the Fisher River basin across the Virginia North Carolina Boundary Line, where remote mountain gaps like Fancy Gap and Piper Gap provided essential passage through the high ridges of Poplar Camp Mt. and the surrounding knobs.