RICHMOND (WSLS 10) – Among eleven new historical highway markers recently approved by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources are signs highlighting women’s history in the military and art, African American history in education and recreation, as well as a sign for a Lynchburg dentist who pushed for dental care for servicemen in the U.S. Army.
Markers:
(Please note that some texts may be slightly modified before the manufacture and installation of the signs.)
Georgia Weston Morgan (1869-1951)
Artist and educator Georgia Morgan studied painting at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and at the Académie Julian in Paris. She was a co-founder of the Lynchburg Civic Art League in 1932 and helped establish the city’s Federal Art Gallery, a Works Progress Administration project, in 1936. Both groups promoted arts education and exhibition for people of all socio-economic backgrounds. She chaired the art department at Lynchburg College for 30 years and was elected to the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Her work, primarily miniatures and landscapes, was exhibited at the Paris Salon and in galleries from Maine to Florida.
Sponsor: Randolph College
Locality: Lynchburg
Proposed Location: Centerview, 1900 Memorial Avenue
Women’s Army Corps Training Center
The Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Training Center was established at nearby Camp Lee in 1948, when the corps gained Regular Army status. The first staff members transformed overgrown fields and dilapidated buildings into usable facilities. Run entirely by women, the center offered basic training, specialty training, and officer courses. Gen. Omar Bradley and U.S. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers visited WACs at the base, designated Fort Lee in 1950. The feature film Never Wave at a WAC (1953), starring Rosalind Russell, was filmed here. About 30,000 WACs were trained at the center before it moved to Fort McClellan, Alabama, in 1954.
Sponsor: Friends of the Army Women’s Museum Association
Locality: Fort Lee
Proposed Location: Oaklawn Boulevard, 100 yards SW of intersection with Lee Avenue
Sponsor Contact: Amanda Vtipilson, Amanda.n.vtipilson.ctr@mail.mil
Isabella Lightfoot Training School
Isabella Miller Lightfoot, born in Pennsylvania and educated at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, taught African American children in Orange County from the 1880s to the 1930s. With other African American patrons, she donated funds for a school built here in 1930, named in her honor. The building, later enlarged, served students through grade 11 until George Washington Carver Regional High School opened in 1948. Operating as an elementary school in subsequent years, the building burned in 1953. That year the county constructed a new brick Lightfoot Elementary School on Route 522 for African Americans. County schools were desegregated in 1967-68.
Proposed Location: 12135 Marquis Road (Rte. 669), Unionville, Orange County
Shady Grove School
The Orange County School Board acquired five acres here in 1894 and established Shady Grove School for African American students. With contributions from African American patrons, the county erected a new two-room frame building here ca. 1923. Although the school received no money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, its design reflected the architectural influence of that program, which helped construct thousands of schools for African Americans across the rural South. Shady Grove, which served grades 1-7, closed in 1954 when the brick Lightfoot Elementary School opened six miles northeast. The frame building was restored in 2007. Orange County schools were desegregated in 1967-68.
Proposed Location: 21024 Piney Woods Road, Orange County
Montgomery Hall Park
Montgomery Hall Park, a municipal park for African Americans during the segregation era, opened on 4 July 1947. The Rev. T. J. Jemison of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, an African American community leader, persuaded Staunton City Council to purchase about 150 acres for the project. The land had been part of John Howe Peyton’s Montgomery Hall plantation, established early in the 19th century. A committee of African American citizens appointed by City Council managed the park, which featured a swimming pool, bowling alley, and picnic facilities and drew crowds from throughout central Virginia. Staunton’s park system was desegregated late in the 1960s.
Proposed Location: Approx. 50 feet south of intersection of Montgomery Avenue and Stuart Street, near entrance to park, in Staunton
Smith Mountain Lake: Bedford County
Appalachian Power Company constructed Smith Mountain and Leesville Dams between 1960 and 1963 to generate hydroelectric energy. The waters of the Roanoke and Blackwater Rivers formed Smith Mountain Lake, one of two resulting reservoirs, which reached “full pond” (795 feet above sea level) on 7 March 1966. This 40-mile long lake, the largest wholly within Virginia, covered 20,600 acres that had primarily been farmland. With its scenic coves and 500 miles of shoreline, the lake became a recreational destination and gave rise to a thriving lakeside community. Smith Mountain Lake State Park was established on 15 July 1983.
Proposed Location: Smith Mountain Lake State Park, 1235 State Park Road, Huddleston, VA
Smith Mountain Lake: Franklin County
Appalachian Power Company built Smith Mountain and Leesville Dams between 1960 and 1963 to generate hydroelectric energy. West of Smith Mountain Dam, the waters of the Roanoke and Blackwater Rivers formed Smith Mountain Lake, covering 20,600 acres that had primarily been farmland. On 7 March 1966, the lake first reached “full pond” (795 feet above sea level). Forty miles long, the lake features 500 miles of shoreline, of which 275 miles lie in Franklin County. Smith Mountain Lake became a popular recreational destination and gave rise to a thriving residential community. It is the largest lake wholly within Virginia.
Proposed Location: northbound Route 122, between Bridgewater Plaza and Hales Ford Bridge (near 16430 Booker T. Washington Highway) in Franklin County
Smith Mountain Project: Pittsylvania County
Appalachian Power Company constructed Smith Mountain and Leesville Dams on the Roanoke River between 1960 and 1963 to generate hydroelectric energy. Between the dams, the river rose to form 3,400-acre Leesville Lake. West of Smith Mountain Dam, the Blackwater and Roanoke Rivers covered 20,600 acres that had primarily been farmland, forming Smith Mountain Lake. On 7 March 1966, Smith Mountain Lake’s water level first reached “full pond” (795 feet above sea level). The largest lake wholly within Virginia, it became a popular residential area and recreational destination. The two lakes have a combined shoreline of 88 miles in Pittsylvania County.
Proposed Location: Smith Mountain Lake Dam Visitors Center, 2072 Ford Road, Sandy Level, VA
Dr. Robert Withers Morgan (1844-1904)
Dental innovator Dr. Robert W. Morgan lived here. Troubled by the lack of dental care for soldiers while he served in the Confederate army, he studied dentistry after the war. During the 1880s he formulated dental hygiene products including Dental Chewing Gum, Dental Chewing Tobacco, and Dental Scotch Snuff, which were manufactured in Lynchburg. Working with Rep. Peter Otey, Morgan drafted preliminary legislation that was the basis for congressional approval in 1901 of the first contract dentists to serve the U.S. Army. He was one of three members appointed to the Army’s first Board of Dental Examiners.
Proposed Location: Centerview, 1900 Memorial Avenue, Lynchburg
New Jerusalem Lutheran Church
New Jerusalem Lutheran Church, formally established in 1765, was among Virginia’s earliest Lutheran congregations east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Its founders were Palatine Germans who immigrated to this area from Pennsylvania and Maryland in the mid-18th century. They constructed their first sanctuary, a log building, on land given by George William Fairfax. Services were conducted in German until about 1830. The present Late Greek Revival-style sanctuary was dedicated in 1869, and its bell tower was added in 1903. The cemetery’s earliest legible stone dates to 1770. A number of Revolutionary War soldiers are buried here.
Sponsor: New Jerusalem Lutheran Church
Proposed Location: East side of Route 287 (Berlin Turnpike), near intersection with Route 676 (Lutheran Church Rd.), Loudoun County
Cedar Grove Cemetery
The Town of Portsmouth established Cedar Grove Cemetery just outside town limits in 1832. A trove of 19th-century funerary art, the cemetery contains monuments and statues handcrafted in the Victorian, Greek Revival, and Egyptian Revival styles, many bearing symbolic motifs. Buried here are at least 10 veterans of the Revolutionary War and 47 veterans of the War of 1812, including Capt. Arthur Emmerson, a hero of the Battle of Craney Island. Also interred here are John Luke Porter, co-designer of the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia, and many Confederate soldiers and sailors. The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sponsor: Cedar Grove Cemetery Foundation
Proposed Location: Fort Lane outside cemetery in Portsmouth
Filed under: News Tagged: historical markers 
