Appalachian Community Histories – Fancy Gap, Carroll County: From the Old Good Spur Road to the Blue Ridge Parkway
High along the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, where the steep slopes of the North Carolina Piedmont rise toward the highlands of Carroll County, lies the community of Fancy Gap. For generations, this mountain passage served as a connection between the valleys of North Carolina and the settlements of Virginia’s Appalachian interior. What began as a difficult crossing used by settlers, farmers, and wagon drivers eventually became an important transportation corridor, attracting travelers, merchants, musicians, and tourists to the mountain community.
The history of Fancy Gap is closely connected to the roads that passed through it. Nineteenth-century court records document the maintenance of the old Good Spur Road, Civil War accounts describe Union cavalry moving through the mountain passage, and newspaper reports from the 1920s celebrate the construction of a modern highway. Later, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Interstate 77 introduced new generations of travelers to the community, transforming a once-isolated mountain crossing into one of the region’s recognizable gateways.
Yet Fancy Gap’s history extends beyond its highways. Its early churches, schools, family farms, political figures, and musical gatherings reveal a community shaped by generations of Appalachian residents whose lives were closely connected to the surrounding mountains. Through historical records, local accounts, photographs, and oral histories, the story of Fancy Gap emerges as one of changing transportation, enduring traditions, and the preservation of a distinctive mountain heritage.
The Early Settlement of Good Spur
Long before Fancy Gap became known to modern travelers, the mountain crossing was associated with an older settlement called Good Spur. The name appeared in nineteenth-century road records and remained part of local historical memory even after Fancy Gap became the more familiar name for the community.
The area’s geography helped determine its early development. The Blue Ridge Mountains form a considerable barrier between the Piedmont of North Carolina and the higher country of southwestern Virginia, but natural gaps provided passages through the mountains. These openings became important to settlers transporting agricultural goods, moving livestock, visiting neighboring communities, and establishing farms on the mountain slopes.
Local historian Walter Revere Morris documented much of the community’s early history in his 1958 work, “Folk Lore” of Early Settlers of America and Their Ancestral Lineage. Morris identified the Dean families among the early settlers associated with Good Spur, placing their arrival in the 1770s. According to his account, the Deans were followed by members of the Wheeler, Beamer, O’Neal, Walk, Phibbs, Bolen, Coltrane, and Mitchell families, many of whom became closely associated with the area’s religious and agricultural life.
Morris’s account provides valuable information about community traditions, although he acknowledged that some of the earliest settlement history depended on family recollections rather than surviving official documents. Those distinctions are important when examining the origins of Fancy Gap, particularly because several generations separated the first settlers from the publication of his history.
Among the families who played an important role in the community was that of John Morris Sr., a Baptist preacher who moved from the Germanton area of North Carolina to Carroll County around 1845. Walter Morris described John Morris as settling near the summit of the Good Spur Road, where he acquired substantial property and established a home overlooking the country below the mountain.
The family home reportedly became a stopping place for travelers crossing the Blue Ridge. According to the later family history, the property included a large log dwelling, a barn, and additional agricultural buildings, reflecting the combination of farming and hospitality that characterized many early mountain households.
Such homes occupied an important place in communities where roads were difficult and commercial accommodations were limited. A traveler reaching the mountaintop after a long climb might depend upon the hospitality of local families before continuing toward Hillsville or descending into North Carolina.
The Old Good Spur Road and the Development of Fancy Gap
The importance of Fancy Gap as a transportation route is particularly evident in the surviving records of the Carroll County Court. Established in 1842 from part of Grayson County, Carroll County inherited a network of mountain roads that required frequent maintenance and improvement.
An October 1847 court order directed George W. Cloud and Isaac Beamer, previously appointed to oversee alterations to the old Good Spur Road, to suspend their work until the court issued further instructions. The record demonstrates that local officials were already attempting to improve the mountain crossing during the county’s earliest years.
On August 10, 1848, the court made additional arrangements for the road through Fancy Gap. Samuel Croft was appointed to oversee the section running from the mountaintop to the home of James Edwards, while Hugh Jones received responsibility for the route from Edwards’s residence to the North Carolina line. John Morris was assigned another section passing near his property.
These appointments reflected the nineteenth-century system of road maintenance, when local courts designated surveyors or overseers to supervise repairs and assigned laborers to help keep public roads usable. Rather than depending upon modern highway departments, mountain communities relied heavily upon local residents to clear obstructions, repair damaged sections, and maintain the routes necessary for commerce and communication.
Further orders recorded during 1848 discussed the opening of a new road from the old Good Spur Road toward the mountaintop. By June 1850, Lewis M. Johnson had been appointed to oversee a section of Fancy Gap Road, and additional changes in road supervision followed later that year.
The persistence of these orders demonstrates how difficult it was to maintain a dependable passage across the Blue Ridge. Wagons hauling farm produce or merchandise faced steep grades, unpredictable weather, and roads that could become nearly impassable after heavy rain.
Benjamin Floyd Nuckolls’s 1914 history, Pioneer Settlers of Grayson County, Virginia, preserved an account of a young Ira B. Coltrane driving wagons across the mountain by way of Good Spur. According to the historical sketch, the climb was so demanding that teams had to be combined to pull individual wagons to the summit. Coltrane later entered the Virginia General Assembly and helped obtain support for improving the mountain road.
Although the account was written many years after the events it describes, it illustrates the longstanding difficulties of transporting goods through the mountains and the importance of more practical routes for the surrounding communities.
Today, part of this older transportation history survives near Devil’s Den Nature Preserve. The preserve contains a section of the former Good Spur Road, allowing the historic corridor to remain visible in a landscape that has otherwise been transformed by modern transportation.
Stoneman’s Raid and the Civil War in Fancy Gap
Fancy Gap’s location also gave the mountain crossing a place in the final weeks of the American Civil War. In the spring of 1865, Union cavalry under Major General George B. Stoneman moved through western North Carolina and southwestern Virginia in an effort to destroy Confederate transportation networks, military supplies, and industrial resources.
Stoneman’s campaign targeted the railroads, bridges, depots, and manufacturing facilities that continued to support Confederate armies as the war approached its conclusion. His cavalry force of approximately four thousand men advanced through mountainous territory, using established roads and passes to reach communities that had previously escaped major military operations.
On April 3, 1865, Stoneman’s raiders crossed into Virginia through Fancy Gap while pursuing a Confederate wagon train. The Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech identifies the mountain passage as the route by which the Union cavalry entered Carroll County before advancing toward Hillsville.
After capturing the wagon train, the raiders encountered resistance from the Confederate Home Guard near Hillsville but soon occupied the county seat. Stoneman then divided his command, dispatching detachments toward important military targets throughout southwestern Virginia.
One force under Colonel John Miller moved toward Wytheville, where Union soldiers attacked Confederate transportation facilities and the nearby lead mines. These mines had supplied an important share of the lead used by Confederate forces, making their destruction particularly damaging to the remaining Confederate war effort.
Other elements of Stoneman’s command continued toward Floyd, Salem, and the railroad connections of the region. Their movements formed part of a campaign that spread considerable alarm through communities already suffering from wartime shortages and uncertainty.
For Fancy Gap, the passage of Union cavalry demonstrated the military significance of a route that had long served local farmers and travelers. The same mountain opening that allowed wagons to cross the Blue Ridge could also provide access for an organized cavalry force moving against the Confederate interior.
The raid took place only six days before General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Although the Civil War was nearing its end in Virginia, the residents of Carroll County experienced a final period of military activity as Stoneman’s troops passed through their region.
Churches, Schools, and Community Life
While transportation shaped Fancy Gap’s connection to the surrounding region, churches and schools provided much of the foundation for its local identity.
Walter Revere Morris’s account of Fancy Gap Methodist Church traces its origins to religious gatherings among the early Good Spur families. He described the Dean and Wheeler families as important participants in the community’s Methodist tradition, while later residents contributed to the establishment of more organized worship.
One of the most interesting details preserved by Morris concerns the Good Spur Union Sunday School. According to his research, a surviving journal dated June 8, 1856, recorded attendance at a Sunday school meeting in a log building near the later Fancy Gap Methodist Church. Morris stated that attendance sometimes reached forty-six people and that the congregation included participants from both Baptist and Methodist backgrounds.
He further identified John Morris Sr. and his father-in-law, Reverend David Westmoreland, as important figures in the early Sunday school’s development. The surviving account suggests that the congregation began as a cooperative religious gathering before becoming more formally associated with the Methodist denomination.
Around 1869, according to Morris, a larger frame church was completed through the efforts of John Morris and James L. Mitchell. The congregation later became identified with Fancy Gap Methodist Church, although the transition reportedly caused some disagreement among its members.
The church building underwent further changes during the twentieth century. Morris recorded that it was rebuilt in 1921, rededicated in 1925, and expanded with additional wings during the years following World War II.
Other congregations throughout the greater Fancy Gap area maintained their own traditions. The records of Primitive Baptist associations, preserved in Carroll County historical collections, provide evidence of the ministers, church meetings, and religious networks that connected families across the mountains.
Education developed alongside the churches. The Carroll County Virginia Digital History collection preserves Fancy Gap School District census records beginning in 1890 and continuing through 1950. These records document school-age children and provide valuable evidence for tracing local families, school attendance, and demographic changes over several generations.
Because the historical school district covered a larger area than the community itself, its records must be interpreted carefully. Nevertheless, they offer an important record of ordinary residents whose lives may otherwise receive little attention in published histories.
A photograph preserved by Virginia Tech Special Collections provides another glimpse of the community’s religious and educational traditions. Dating to approximately 1900, the Fancy Gap Church Singing Class photograph shows a group gathered outside a local church. Its caption identifies several community figures, including Reverend John Horton, Reverend John William Morris, Professor J. C. Carper, and Judge David W. Bolen.
The photograph preserves the names and faces of residents connected through music, faith, and community activities at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Judge David Winton Bolen and the Allen Family
Among the notable individuals associated with Fancy Gap was David Winton Bolen, a lawyer, judge, politician, and local historian who maintained a lifelong connection to the community.
Born in Carroll County on August 17, 1850, Bolen grew up on a family farm near Fancy Gap. His father, William B. Bolen, died while serving in the Confederate army in 1862, leaving the family in difficult financial circumstances.
According to the Library of Virginia’s Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Bolen spent much of his youth performing agricultural labor while pursuing an education through limited schooling and independent reading. He began teaching in 1869, studied law, and eventually entered the legal profession.
Bolen subsequently served in the Virginia House of Delegates and as a circuit judge. He also represented Carroll County at the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901 and 1902, which produced a constitution that imposed restrictive voting requirements and substantially reduced African American political participation.
Despite his legal and political career, Bolen retained his farm near Fancy Gap, where he pursued an interest in poetry and local history. His name also appeared in community records and in accounts of the highway improvements that would reshape the region during the 1920s.
Another family associated with the Fancy Gap area became the subject of national attention following the Carroll County courthouse shooting of March 14, 1912.
The incident occurred in Hillsville during the trial of Floyd Allen, a prominent local figure whose conflict with county authorities had developed into a contentious legal proceeding. After Allen was convicted of assault, gunfire erupted inside the courtroom, leaving five people dead, including the presiding judge, sheriff, commonwealth’s attorney, a juror, and a spectator.
The violence became widely known as the Hillsville Courthouse Tragedy and attracted extensive newspaper coverage throughout the United States.
Floyd Allen’s brother, Sidna Allen, had recently completed an elaborate home near Fancy Gap. Finished in 1911, the residence reflected his ambition to construct one of the county’s finest houses. Designed by Sidna Allen and his wife and built with the assistance of carpenter Preston Dickens, the house incorporated distinctive Queen Anne architectural features.
Following the courthouse shooting, Sidna Allen was convicted of participating in the violence and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. He was eventually pardoned after serving approximately thirteen years, while his house had been confiscated following his conviction.
The Sidna Allen House was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Its preservation connects the Fancy Gap community to one of the most widely discussed criminal cases in Virginia’s early twentieth-century history.
Although the courthouse shooting occurred in Hillsville rather than Fancy Gap, the Allen family’s connections to the surrounding countryside demonstrate how events at the county seat affected residents throughout Carroll County.
The Fancy Gap Road Opening of 1928
Perhaps no single development transformed Fancy Gap’s transportation history more visibly than the construction of an improved highway across the mountain during the 1920s.
For generations, the difficult climb between the Piedmont and Carroll County had limited travel and commerce. Increasing automobile ownership created new demands for dependable roads, while state officials and local business leaders recognized the economic advantages of connecting southwestern Virginia more directly with North Carolina.
On November 11, 1922, the Virginia State Highway Commission formally approved routing the proposed highway between Hillsville and the North Carolina line through Fancy Gap. The decision, preserved in the commission’s original meeting minutes, marked an important step toward modernizing the crossing.
Further cooperation between Virginia and North Carolina eventually produced a hard-surfaced highway linking the state line with Hillsville. By 1928, the improved route was ready for public celebration.
Contemporary newspaper accounts reproduced in the Fall 2020 issue of the Carroll County Chronicles reveal the extraordinary excitement surrounding the opening.
On October 11, 1928, The Carroll News published plans for an elaborate celebration scheduled for October 19. Organizers expected large motorcades from communities across southwestern Virginia and northwestern North Carolina, including Mount Airy, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Galax, and other regional centers.
The planned festivities featured a historical pageant, a band from Winston-Salem, speeches from prominent officials, and a parade intended to represent the progress of transportation. Organizers described a procession beginning with the image of an early pioneer and ending with modern automobiles and an airplane, symbolizing the changes that had occurred since the first roads crossed the mountains.
Visitors were encouraged to bring basket lunches because the anticipated crowds would exceed the capacity of local restaurants and food vendors.
The ceremony also included the unveiling of a Boone Trail marker near the Continental Divide, close to Judge Bolen’s property. The marker was intended to commemorate the historical associations of the old Good Spur route, which the celebration’s organizers described as an early trail through the mountains.
The use of Daniel Boone’s image reflected the popularity of frontier commemoration during this period, although the ceremony itself does not establish that Boone personally traveled the precise route through Fancy Gap.
The October 25 edition of The Carroll News reported that the celebration had drawn an estimated fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand people to Hillsville and the surrounding area. A large motorcade traveled from North Carolina to meet Virginia participants at the top of the Blue Ridge, where Edith Bolen, a niece of Judge David W. Bolen, unveiled the commemorative marker.
The celebration represented more than the opening of a single stretch of pavement. It marked the arrival of a new transportation era for Carroll County, providing easier access between communities that had been separated for generations by difficult mountain roads.
For Fancy Gap, the highway offered new opportunities for roadside businesses, commercial traffic, and visitors. A place once associated primarily with the difficulty of crossing the mountains increasingly became known as a destination along the journey.
The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Growth of Mountain Tourism
The transformation of Fancy Gap continued during the Great Depression with the development of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Proposed during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the parkway was envisioned as a scenic highway connecting Shenandoah National Park in Virginia with Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. The project combined federal employment programs, landscape preservation, and the growing American interest in automobile tourism.
Construction began in September 1935 near Cumberland Knob, North Carolina, with private contractors and New Deal agencies contributing to the enormous undertaking.
Rather than serving primarily as a commercial transportation route, the Blue Ridge Parkway was designed to provide travelers with scenic overlooks, recreational opportunities, and carefully planned views of the Appalachian landscape.
Fancy Gap occupied an important location along the proposed route because the parkway crossed the established highway corridor near the crest of the Blue Ridge.
Modern National Park Service documentation identifies several historic structures in the Fancy Gap area. The bridge carrying the parkway over U.S. Route 52 at milepost 199.41 dates to 1940 and incorporates a concrete structure faced with native stone. Nearby facilities include a maintenance building dating to 1958 and two parkway residences constructed during the same period.
These buildings and structures illustrate how the federal government developed and maintained the parkway as a permanent part of the mountain landscape.
The Blue Ridge Parkway also introduced new visitors to the surrounding communities. Travelers following the ridgeline could leave the parkway near Fancy Gap, explore the nearby countryside, purchase goods from local businesses, or continue toward Hillsville and Mount Airy.
For residents, the parkway represented both an economic opportunity and a significant change in how the surrounding mountains were presented to the outside world. Agricultural landscapes, mountain communities, and traditional ways of life became part of a scenic experience marketed to visitors from throughout the country.
The growth of tourism did not erase the earlier history of the region, but it added another layer to a community that had always depended upon movement through the mountains.
Appalachian Music and the Fancy Gap School Dances
Fancy Gap’s cultural history is particularly well documented through its traditional music and community gatherings.
The region surrounding Carroll County and the nearby North Carolina communities of Mount Airy and Surry County has long maintained strong traditions of fiddle music, banjo playing, ballad singing, and social dancing. These musical practices developed through family gatherings, church activities, local celebrations, and informal performances.
In 1978, researchers working on the Library of Congress’s Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project visited Fancy Gap to document its musical traditions and community life.
On August 18, 1978, fieldworkers photographed Fancy Gap Elementary School before a Parent Teacher Association dance. The surviving collection contains thirteen exterior photographs of the school and its surroundings, providing a visual record of the place where local residents gathered.
A separate collection of nineteen photographs documents people enjoying the Friday-night dances held at Fancy Gap School. The images preserve traditional dancing, music, and social interaction, showing how the school served as a community gathering place beyond its educational purpose.
The American Folklife Center also recorded music and conversations associated with the dances. Its archival inventory identifies recordings from the August 18 gathering and additional Fancy Gap dance recordings made on August 25, 1978.
The project continued its work in October, recording interviews with Clinton Iroler and E. G. Branscombe on October 14. These materials provide direct evidence of the community’s musical and social traditions during the late twentieth century.
Earlier collections demonstrate that the area’s music had attracted scholarly attention for decades. Fletcher Collins Jr. made field recordings in Fancy Gap during November and December 1941, preserving examples of local musical expression.
By 1977, the area had also inspired recorded songs such as Jim Marshall’s The Ballad of Fancy Gap, later documented in the Virginia Traditions recordings issued through the Blue Ridge Institute.
Together, these recordings and photographs demonstrate that Fancy Gap was not simply a place travelers passed through. It was a community with its own gatherings, performers, churches, and customs, contributing to the broader musical heritage of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Local Businesses and the Changing Community
As improved roads increased the number of travelers passing through Fancy Gap, local businesses became part of the community’s changing economy.
The development of U.S. Route 52, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and later Interstate 77 provided opportunities for shops, restaurants, lodging establishments, and other businesses serving both visitors and local residents. Yet the history of these establishments also reflects the importance of family ownership and community relationships.
One example survives in the records of the Carroll County Board of Supervisors.
During a September 12, 2022, meeting, county officials recognized the Fancy Gap Dress Shop and recounted its history. According to the presentation, Ken and Lucille Iroler purchased the business from Worth Utt in 1970. Lucille selected the name Fancy Gap Dress Shop, although the establishment also became known locally for the thousands of dresses advertised inside.
The business passed to their daughter Bonnie and her husband Dennis Hiatt in 1992. In 1995, a fire destroyed the original building, but the family reconstructed the store at the same location and continued operating.
The account illustrates how family businesses contributed to the commercial identity of Fancy Gap during the second half of the twentieth century.
Even as transportation patterns changed, such establishments helped maintain the community’s identity as something more than a highway intersection. They provided employment, preserved family enterprises, and served generations of residents and travelers.
Interstate 77 and the Hazards of Fancy Gap Mountain
The arrival of Interstate 77 brought another major transportation development to the Fancy Gap region during the twentieth century.
The interstate provided a high-capacity route across the Blue Ridge, connecting southwestern Virginia with North Carolina and carrying substantial commercial and passenger traffic through the mountain corridor.
Although modern engineering made travel considerably faster than the wagon journeys of the nineteenth century, the mountain continued to present serious hazards.
The steep elevation changes and unpredictable weather surrounding Fancy Gap have long made the area susceptible to dense fog, particularly when atmospheric conditions cause cloud formations to develop along the Blue Ridge escarpment.
One of the most serious accidents occurred on March 31, 2013, when extremely dense fog contributed to a series of collisions along Interstate 77 near Fancy Gap.
According to the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, eighteen separate accidents occurred during the afternoon, involving approximately ninety-six vehicles along a stretch of highway measuring roughly one mile. Three people were killed and at least twenty-five were injured.
The National Weather Service described visibility as approaching zero at the time and identified the rapid changes in elevation around Fancy Gap as an important factor in the area’s recurring fog problems.
The 2013 accident brought renewed attention to the dangers of mountain transportation, demonstrating that the natural features influencing the first wagon roads continued to affect modern highways.
For nearly two centuries, engineers and travelers had attempted to overcome the difficulties posed by Fancy Gap Mountain. The technology had changed dramatically, but the landscape remained an important influence on the safety and reliability of travel.
Preserving the History of Fancy Gap
Much of Fancy Gap’s early landscape has changed, but historic sites and archival collections continue to preserve evidence of the community’s past.
Devil’s Den Nature Preserve is among the most significant surviving locations associated with the old Good Spur corridor. The approximately 250-acre property contains a portion of the historical roadbed, the nineteenth-century Robert S. Harris Farmstead, and the distinctive rock formations that give the preserve its name.
The farmstead, associated with the 1880s, provides a physical connection to the agricultural life that preceded the era of automobile tourism. The preserve also retains associations with the 1912 courthouse tragedy and the growth of tourism during the 1920s.
Additional evidence survives in local records. The Library of Virginia maintains Carroll County court orders, deed books, marriage records, probate records, and other documents dating back to the county’s formation. These collections can help reconstruct the lives of early landowners, identify historic road locations, and trace the development of individual families.
The Carroll County Virginia Digital History project has made substantial portions of the county’s historical record available online, including nineteenth-century land books, school censuses, early newspapers, aerial photographs, and road maps.
Aerial surveys taken between 1936 and 1941 are particularly valuable for examining the landscape before the extensive development that followed World War II. They allow researchers to compare former farms, fields, and roads with the modern community.
Historical maps of Fancy Gap and Carroll County provide additional evidence of how the region’s transportation network developed throughout the twentieth century.
The preservation of these materials is especially important because the historical Fancy Gap Magisterial District encompassed a much larger area than the present-day community. Documents identified as originating in Fancy Gap may refer to residents, schools, or properties scattered across the wider district rather than the settlement near the mountaintop.
Careful comparison of maps, family records, photographs, and county documents is therefore essential for reconstructing the history of Fancy Gap itself.
The Legacy of Fancy Gap, Virginia
The story of Fancy Gap is inseparable from the mountain crossing that gave the community its identity. From the early Good Spur settlement to the first court-maintained wagon roads, the passage connected families, farms, and markets on opposite sides of the Blue Ridge.
During the Civil War, that same crossing carried Union cavalry into Carroll County. In the early twentieth century, an improved highway brought thousands of visitors to celebrate a new era of automobile travel. The Blue Ridge Parkway subsequently made the surrounding mountains part of a nationally recognized scenic landscape, while Interstate 77 introduced another generation of travelers to the difficulties and opportunities of crossing the Blue Ridge.
Yet the community’s history also belongs to the families who settled its farms, the congregations that gathered in its churches, the children who attended its schools, and the musicians who filled its community buildings with traditional Appalachian music.
The records of John Morris and the Good Spur settlement, the career of Judge David Winton Bolen, the preserved Sidna Allen House, and the recordings of the Fancy Gap school dances reveal a history extending far beyond the highways themselves.
Today, the old Good Spur Road, historic buildings, archival photographs, and surviving family histories provide connections to the generations who lived along the mountain before modern transportation transformed it.
Fancy Gap remains a reminder that many of Appalachia’s most important communities developed not because the mountains made travel easy, but because generations of residents found ways to cross them. What began as a difficult route through the Blue Ridge became a lasting crossroads, preserving the story of a mountain community shaped by both the people who made their homes there and those who passed through on their way to somewhere else.
Sources & Further Reading
Carroll County Court. “Miscellaneous Carroll County, Virginia Court Orders, 1847–1852.” Transcribed by Linda Skinner. New River Notes. https://www.newrivernotes.com/miscellaneous-carroll-court-orders-1847-1852/
Virginia State Highway Commission. Minutes of the Virginia State Highway Commission, November 10–11, 1922. Commonwealth Transportation Board Archives. https://ctb.virginia.gov/media/ctb/meeting-archives/meeting-archive-before-2001/ctb-archives-pdf/CTB-11-1922-01.PDF
The Carroll News. “Elaborate Plans Are Made for Big Celebration.” October 11, 1928. Reprinted in Carroll County Chronicles, Fall 2020, 13–15. https://user-23310503727.cld.bz/Carroll-County-Chronicles-Fall-2020/15/
The Carroll News. “Thousands Attended the Big Road Celebration Here the 19th.” October 25, 1928. Reprinted in Carroll County Chronicles, Fall 2020, 16–17. https://user-23310503727.cld.bz/Carroll-County-Chronicles-Fall-2020/18/
Carroll County Historical Society. “Good Roads Come to Carroll.” Carroll County Chronicles, Fall 2020. https://user-23310503727.cld.bz/Carroll-County-Chronicles-Fall-2020/15/
Morris, Walter Revere. “Folk Lore” of Early Settlers of America and Their Ancestral Lineage. Vol. 3. Fancy Gap, VA: Privately published, 1958. https://publiclibrary.cc/digitalcollections/files/original/12/13662/Folk-Lore-of-Early-Settlers-and-Their-Ancestrial-Lineage.pdf
Nuckolls, Benjamin Floyd. Pioneer Settlers of Grayson County, Virginia. Bristol, TN: King Printing Company, 1914. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/15019440/
Alderman, John Perry. Carroll 1765–1815: The Settlements. Richmond, VA: Central Virginia Newspapers, 1985. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL2629052M/Carroll_1765-1815_the_settlements
Carroll County Historical Society and Museum. Carroll County Chronicles. Vol. 19, no. 4, and vol. 20, no. 1. Articles concerning Old Good Spur Road, the John Morris family, Devil’s Den, early education, and Fancy Gap transportation history. https://carrollvamuseum.org/museum/news/carroll-county-chronicles/
Willis, Ninevah Jackson. A Study of the Folklore of a Mountainous Section in Southwestern Virginia. Master’s thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1955. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/items/9ab15a66-3c12-441b-9bde-f1a8bac79f2e
Virginia Center for Civil War Studies. “Stoneman’s Raid in Virginia, 1865.” Virginia Tech. https://civilwar.vt.edu/programs/drivingtour/stonemansraid.html
Moore, James Tice. “David Winton Bolen.” Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/dvb/bio/bolen-david-winton
Heinemann, Ronald L. “Floyd Allen (1856–1913).” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/allen-floyd-1856-1913/
Payne, Edwin Chancellor. The Hillsville Tragedy: Story of the Allen Clan. 1913. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/ltf90039985/
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Sidna Allen House, National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form. 1973. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/017-0005_Sidna_Allen_House_1973_Final_Nomination.pdf
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Sidna Allen House.” Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/017-0005/
Carroll County Historical Society and Museum. “J. Sidna Allen Home.” https://carrollvamuseum.org/jsidnaallenhome/
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “1912 Historical Courthouse Tragedy.” Collection of historical documents and court records. https://www.ccva.digital/1912-historical-courthouse-tragedy.html
Library of Virginia. “Carroll County Microfilm.” County and City Records on Microfilm. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA053
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “School Census.” Fancy Gap School District records, 1890–1950. https://www.ccva.digital/school-census.html
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Land Books/Tax Cards.” Historical land and tax records for Carroll County, including Fancy Gap District. https://www.ccva.digital/land-bookstax-cards.html
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Deed Books.” Historical Carroll County property records beginning in 1842. https://www.ccva.digital/deed-books.html
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Court Order Books.” Digitized historical court records. https://www.ccva.digital/court-order-books.html
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Primitive Baptist Minutes.” Historical church association records. https://www.ccva.digital/primitive-baptist-minutes.html
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Newspapers.” Historical Carroll County newspaper collection. https://www.ccva.digital/newspapers.html
Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives. Fancy Gap Church Singing Class Photograph. Circa 1900. Collection Ms2008-068. https://aspace.lib.vt.edu/repositories/2/resources/2389
Owen, Margaret Counts, and Lyntha Scott Eiler. Fancy Gap Dance, Fancy Gap Elementary School, Fancy Gap, Virginia. August 18, 1978. Photographs. Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1982009_le_006/
Owen, Margaret Counts, and Terry Eiler. Fancy Gap Dance, Fancy Gap Elementary School, Fancy Gap, Virginia. August 1978. Photographs of traditional music and community dancing. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1982009_te_026/
Library of Congress, American Folklife Center. Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection, 1977–1981. Collection finding aid and recording inventory. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/gdcfindingaidpdfs/af013011/af013011_containerList.pdf
Library of Congress, American Folklife Center. Fletcher Collins Jr. Collection, 1935–1944. Includes field recordings made in Fancy Gap during November and December 1941. https://findingaids.loc.gov/repositories/3/resources/5
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Fancy Gap Dances.” Historical community dance video collection. https://www.ccva.digital/fancy-gap-dances.html
Marshall, Jim, and Artie Marshall. “The Ballad of Fancy Gap.” In Virginia Traditions: Native Virginia Ballads and Songs. Blue Ridge Institute, 1981. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. https://folkways.si.edu/jim-and-artie-marshall/the-ballad-of-fancy-gap/american-folk-old-time/music/track/smithsonian
National Park Service. “Construction of the Parkway.” Blue Ridge Parkway. https://www.nps.gov/blri/learn/historyculture/construction.htm
National Park Service. Blue Ridge Parkway National Historic Landmark Nomination. 2024. Virginia Department of Historic Resources. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/080-5161_Blue_Ridge_Parkway_2024_Final_Posted_NHL_nomination.pdf
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Aerial Maps.” Historical agricultural aerial photographs of Carroll County, 1936–1941. https://www.ccva.digital/aerial-maps.html
Carroll County Virginia Digital History. “Road Maps: Carroll.” Historical Carroll County road maps, 1932–2017. https://www.ccva.digital/road-maps—carroll.html
National Weather Service, Blacksburg, Virginia. “Dense Fog at Fancy Gap Leads to 96-Car Pileup on I-77.” NOAA ‘Bout Weather, Spring 2013. https://www.weather.gov/media/rnk/Newsletter/Spring_2013.pdf
Carroll County Board of Supervisors. Regular Meeting Minutes, September 12, 2022. Carroll County, Virginia. https://cms7files.revize.com/carrollcounty/Documents/Government/Board%20Of%20Supervisors/Meeting%20Documentation/2022/Minutes/September%2012%2C%202022%20Minutes.pdf
Friends of Southwest Virginia. “Devil’s Den Nature Preserve.” Visit Southwest Virginia. https://visitswva.org/attractions/devils-den-nature-preserve/
Author Note: The history of Fancy Gap reflects generations of Appalachian families whose lives were shaped by the mountain crossing, from its earliest settlers to the communities that developed alongside modern highways. I hope this article encourages readers to appreciate the people, traditions, and historical landmarks that continue to define this remarkable corner of southwestern Virginia.