Appalachian Community Histories – Rose Hill, Lee County: Ely Mound, Martin’s Station, and a Community Kept in the Records
Rose Hill sits in western Lee County, Virginia, close to the places where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee press against one another in the Cumberland country. Today the federal government identifies Rose Hill as a populated place in Lee County, and the 2020 census counted 729 people in the Rose Hill census-designated place. That small modern number can make Rose Hill look quiet on a map, but the ground around it carries some of the deepest history in far Southwest Virginia.
Rose Hill’s story is not only the story of one village. It is the story of Native mound-building culture, frontier settlement, Wilderness Road travel, county records, oil geology, New Deal camp life, and two people from Lee County who later entered the hidden world of American codebreaking. Few communities of its size have so many different kinds of historical evidence gathered around them.
Ely Mound and the Older History of the Valley
Long before Rose Hill was called Rose Hill, people lived, traveled, farmed, hunted, traded, and remembered in the valleys of what became Lee County. The clearest surviving witness to that older world is Ely Mound, located near Rose Hill. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources describes Ely Mound as dating to the Late Woodland and Mississippian period, around A.D. 1200 to 1650, and identifies it as the only clearly recognized substructure or town-house mound in Virginia. That alone makes it one of the most important archaeological places in the state.
Ely Mound is important because it changes how Rose Hill should be understood. The community is not only a frontier settlement place or a later rural village. It stands near a major remnant of a Native landscape that reached back centuries before European settlement. Encyclopedia Virginia places the mound beside Indian Creek near Rose Hill and describes it as part of the latter Mississippian period. When Lucien Carr of Harvard investigated the mound in the 1870s, he excavated part of the nineteen-foot-high structure and found shell beads, pottery, stone or pottery gaming disks, and a polished stone discoidal used in the game of chunkey.
Carr’s work at Ely Mound also had a place in the history of archaeology itself. The Department of Historic Resources notes that his excavation helped him reject the old “lost race” theory, a nineteenth-century idea that separated mound-building from Native peoples. That matters because Ely Mound did more than preserve objects. It helped challenge a false interpretation of Native history.
Martin’s Station and the Frontier Road
The Rose Hill area entered colonial records and frontier memory through Martin’s Station. Historic Martin’s Station, now interpreted at Wilderness Road State Park, traces the station’s name to Joseph Martin, who was selected by Dr. Thomas Walker to help secure land claims in Powell Valley. Martin’s party entered the valley in 1769, identified land near present-day Rose Hill, built a stockaded fort and crude cabins, and planted corn. The settlement was abandoned after an attack that fall, but Martin returned in 1775 with another party and built a more permanent station on the old site.
This made Rose Hill part of one of the central migration stories of early Appalachia. A National Register nomination for the Pennington Gap Commercial Historic District summarizes the broader Lee County context by noting that Joseph Martin established Martin’s Station near what is now Rose Hill in 1769. The same nomination describes it as the first recorded European settlement in what became Lee County and the westernmost one in the colony at that time.
Martin’s Station became especially important because of its position along the route remembered as the Wilderness Road. According to Historic Martin’s Station, it became the last fortified station along the Wilderness Road before travelers entered the new lands being opened in Kentucky. That placed the Rose Hill area in the path of families, hunters, surveyors, land speculators, and migrants who were moving through the Appalachian interior in the late eighteenth century.
Roads, Records, and the Making of Lee County
Rose Hill’s early history is also tied to the formation of Lee County itself. The Pennington Gap National Register nomination states that Lee County was carved from Russell County in 1792 and that Jonesville became the county seat and first official town in 1794. The same source explains that U.S. Route 58 now follows the route associated with the Wilderness Road through the region.
For Rose Hill, that means the best evidence is not always found in one single town archive. The community’s history is scattered across courthouse records, land deeds, chancery causes, tax lists, postal records, old maps, newspapers, highway markers, and preservation files. That is common for unincorporated Appalachian communities. Their history often survives through the records of land, roads, churches, schools, post offices, cemeteries, military service, and family property.
This is why Rose Hill rewards careful research. Ely Mound tells one part of the story. Martin’s Station tells another. Lee County court records, the Library of Virginia, the National Archives, and old newspapers fill in the quieter parts, including families, farms, lawsuits, estates, store accounts, school events, church activity, and the small details of daily life.
The Rose Hill Oil Field
Rose Hill also appears in federal and state geological history because of the Rose Hill oil field. In 1945, Ralph L. Miller and J. Osborn Fuller published a U.S. Geological Survey map titled “Geology of the Rose Hill oil field, Lee County, Virginia.” In 1947, they followed with “Geologic and structure contour maps of the Rose Hill oil field,” another USGS oil and gas investigation map.
These sources show a different side of Rose Hill’s past. The same community associated with prehistoric archaeology and frontier travel also became a place of scientific mapping and natural-resource study. The Rose Hill oil field connected the community to the larger story of Appalachian geology, extraction, and the search for petroleum in the folded and faulted mountains of Southwest Virginia.
The oil field sources are not the kind of records that usually appear in family stories, but they are important. They show how Rose Hill was studied by geologists, mapped by federal surveyors, and placed into the technical language of formations, structure contours, and resource development. That gives the community a place in both local history and the history of Appalachian science.
A New Deal Newspaper in Rose Hill
Rose Hill also appears in the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Library of Virginia’s newspaper bibliography lists the 339th Dodo, published in Rose Hill in 1936 by C.C.C. Company 339. The listing describes it as a first and final edition and notes that it is available through Virginia Chronicle, with microfiche and originals held by the Library of Virginia.
That little CCC paper is a valuable primary source. It gives researchers a way to see Rose Hill in the New Deal era, not as a distant place in a government report, but as a living community connected to camp culture, work projects, young men, jokes, officers, local events, and Depression-era public programs. For a community history, sources like this matter because they preserve voices that official records often miss.
Codebreakers From Rose Hill
Rose Hill’s history also reaches far beyond Lee County through Frank B. Rowlett and Gene Grabeel. In 2019, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources approved a highway marker titled “Lee County Code Breakers,” which remembered Rowlett and Grabeel as two people who grew up in Rose Hill. The marker summary notes that Rowlett led a U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service team that cracked the Japanese diplomatic cipher machine known as PURPLE in 1940 and helped design an American encryption machine that Axis powers never decoded during World War II.
The National Security Agency states that Frank Rowlett was born in Rose Hill on May 2, 1908, studied mathematics and chemistry at Emory and Henry College, and was hired by William Friedman as a junior cryptanalyst in the Signal Intelligence Service in 1930. From Rose Hill, he entered one of the most secret and technically demanding fields in the federal government.
Gene Grabeel’s story adds another remarkable Rose Hill connection. Smithsonian Magazine describes her as a young home economics teacher from Lee County whose hometown of Rose Hill had about 300 people, a grocery, a church, and a service station. She later entered codebreaking work during World War II and became associated with the Venona project, one of the major secret intelligence efforts of the twentieth century.
Together, Rowlett and Grabeel show how a small Appalachian community could produce people whose work reached into national and international history. Their careers also widen the meaning of Rose Hill. It was not only a place of old roads and early settlements. It was also a place that helped shape two lives tied to American cryptologic history.
Why Rose Hill Matters
Rose Hill’s history is layered. Ely Mound points to a Native past that is older than the county, older than Virginia’s western settlement story, and older than the name Rose Hill itself. Martin’s Station connects the community to the contested frontier, the Wilderness Road, Joseph Martin, and the movement of settlers through the Cumberland Gap region. County records and newspapers preserve the slower rhythms of land, family, church, school, and community life. USGS maps place Rose Hill in the story of Appalachian geology and petroleum. The 339th Dodo places it in the New Deal. Frank Rowlett and Gene Grabeel place it in the history of codebreaking.
That is why Rose Hill deserves more than a passing mention as a small place in Lee County. It is one of those Appalachian communities where the local story opens into much larger histories. To stand near Rose Hill is to stand near one of Virginia’s most important mounds, near the remembered ground of one of Lee County’s earliest colonial settlements, and near the homeplace of people whose work later reached into the secret rooms of war and intelligence.
For researchers, Rose Hill is not finished history. It is a place still waiting in courthouse books, chancery files, old newspapers, cemetery records, geological maps, and family collections. Its story is not only in what has already been written. It is also in what remains to be found.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Geological Survey. “Rose Hill.” Geographic Names Information System. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/summary/1499986
U.S. Census Bureau. “Gazetteer Files.” United States Census Bureau. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.census.gov/geographies/reference-files/time-series/geo/gazetteer-files.html
U.S. Census Bureau. “P1: Total Population, Rose Hill CDP, Lee County, Virginia.” 2020 Decennial Census. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALDHC2020.P1?g=160XX00US5168885
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Ely Mound.” Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/052-0018/
National Register of Historic Places. “Ely Mound Archaeological Site, Lee County, Virginia.” National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, 1983. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/052-0018_Ely_Mound_1983_Nomination_REDACTED.pdf
Encyclopedia Virginia. “Ely Mound Archaeological Site.” Encyclopedia Virginia. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/ely-mound-archaeological-site/
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Pennington Gap Commercial Historic District, Lee County, Virginia.” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, 2023. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/281-5002_PenningtonGapCommercialHD_2023_NRHP_Final.pdf
Historic Martin’s Station. “Martin’s Station.” Historic Martin’s Station. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.martinsstation.com/martins-station/
Lee County, Virginia. “Lee County, Virginia Comprehensive Plan, 2020 Update.” Lee County, Virginia, adopted 2020. https://www.leecova.org/pdf/Lee%20County%20Comprehensive%20Plan-Adopted%202020.pdf
The Lee County Story. “Rose Hill.” The Lee County Story. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.theleecountystory.com/rose-hill/
Mize, Martha Grace Lowry. “History and Heritage Made Accessible: The Lee County, Virginia Story.” Honors thesis, University of Mississippi, 2017. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1641&context=hon_thesis
Pusey, William Allen. “General Joseph Martin: An Unsung Hero of the Virginia Frontier.” Filson Club History Quarterly 10, no. 2, 1936. https://filsonhistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/publicationpdfs/10-2-2_General-Joseph-Martin-An-Unsung-Hero-of-the-Virginia-Frontier_Pusey-Dr.-William-Allen.pdf
Library of Virginia. “Civilian Conservation Corps Newspapers.” Virginia Newspaper Project. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://old.lva.virginia.gov/public/vnd/results.php?categories=Civilian+Conservation+Corps+Newspapers
Miller, Ralph L., and J. Osborn Fuller. “Geology of the Rose Hill Oil Field, Lee County, Virginia.” U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigation Map 20, 1945. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/om20
Miller, Ralph L., and J. Osborn Fuller. “Geologic and Structure Contour Maps of the Rose Hill Oil Field, Lee County, Virginia.” U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigation Map 76, 1947. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/om76
Miller, Ralph L., and W. P. Brosgé. Geology and Oil Resources of the Jonesville District, Lee County, Virginia. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 990, 1954. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0990/report.pdf
Huddle, John W., and Kathryn M. Englund. “Oil and Gas Wells Drilled in Southwestern Virginia Before 1950.” U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1027-L, 1956. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1027l/report.pdf
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Eight New Historical Highway Markers Approved.” Virginia Department of Historic Resources, April 22, 2019. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/blog-posts/eight-new-historical-highway-markers-approved/
National Security Agency. “Frank B. Rowlett.” National Security Agency, Cryptologic History. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.nsa.gov/History/Cryptologic-History/Historical-Figures/Historical-Figures-View/Article/1623037/frank-b-rowlett/
U.S. Army Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. “Colonel Frank B. Rowlett, U.S. Army, Retired.” Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. https://www.ikn.army.mil/apps/MIHOF/biographies/Rowlett%2C%20Frank.pdf
National Security Agency. The Venona Story. Fort Meade, MD: National Security Agency Center for Cryptologic History. https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/publications/coldwar/venona_story.pdf
Steber, Liza Mundy. “The Women Code Breakers Who Unmasked Soviet Spies.” Smithsonian Magazine, October 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-code-breakers-unmasked-soviet-spies-180970034/
Emory & Henry University. “Frank Byron Rowlett.” Emory & Henry University. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.emoryhenry.edu/live/profiles/6-frank-rowlett
Historical Marker Database. “Martin’s Station.” HMdb.org. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.hmdb.org/
Historical Marker Database. “Lee County Code Breakers.” HMdb.org. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=162938
Library of Virginia. “Lee County Microfilm Reel Index.” Library of Virginia. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/
Library of Virginia. “Chancery Records Index: Lee County.” Library of Virginia. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950.” National Archives Catalog. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://catalog.archives.gov/
United States Postal Service. “Sources of Historical Information on Post Offices, Postal Employees, Mail Routes, and Mail Contractors.” United States Postal Service. Accessed May 19, 2026. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/
Author Note: Rose Hill is one of those Appalachian communities where a small place holds a much larger story. I wanted to treat it not just as a dot on the map, but as a Lee County community tied to Native history, frontier settlement, geology, New Deal life, and national codebreaking history.