Upper South

US 11: The Valley Road South

the Great Wagon Road's last act

Open the interactive map →

Drive

Roanoke → Bristol

Distance

~150 miles

Time

1–2 days

Highways

US 11

Avoids

I-81

Region

Upper South

The Great Wagon Road carried a quarter-million settlers down the Valley of Virginia, and its southern reach is the stretch the trucks on I-81 never see: a ten-stool Roanoke burger shrine open since 1930, a hundred-foot lookout tower with a swinging bridge, an 1807 shot tower dropping lead into the New River, and Abingdon's Barter Theatre, which sold Depression-era tickets for vegetables. It lands at the Bristol sign, where the Crooked Road takes the handoff.

📍 Great Road and Wilderness Road markers alternate the length of the pike.

The drive, segment by segment

New River Country

Roanoke → Pulaski · ~45 mi

Out of the star city through Christiansburg and Radford, the ancient river crossing the young road.

• 🍽️Texas Tavern — Roanoke

  Ten stools, open around the clock since 1930, self-styled Millionaires Club that 'seats a thousand people, ten at a time.' Order a Cheesy Western.

Wytheville

Pulaski → Marion · ~45 mi

The crossroads town of towers, pencils and a First Lady, then Hungry Mother's CCC lake.

• 🛸Big Walker Lookout — Wytheville

  A 100-foot tower and swinging bridge atop the mountain, a family roadside operation across three generations.

• 🏘️Wytheville — Wytheville

  Birthplace of First Lady Edith Bolling Wilson, with her museum downtown and a 30-foot pencil hanging off the office-supply store.

• 🏛️Jackson Ferry Shot Tower — Austinville

  An 1807 stone tower that dropped molten lead 150 feet into the New River to make shot; one of the last standing in America.

Abingdon & the Border

Marion → Bristol · ~60 mi

The Barter's marquee, Main Street's federal brick, and the state line down the middle of Bristol.

• 🌲Hungry Mother State Park — Marion

  A CCC original around a mountain lake, named for the frontier legend of Molly Marley; the story is grim, the swimming is not.

• 🎬Barter Theatre — Abingdon

  Opened in 1933 taking produce for admission, 'ham for Hamlet'; now the State Theatre of Virginia, with Gregory Peck among its alumni.

• 🪧The Bristol Sign — Bristol

  The century-old arch over State Street straddling two states: 'A Good Place to Live.' The Crooked Road route picks up the music from here.

Worth a detour

• Foster Falls & New River Trail — A 57-mile rail trail state park along the New; Foster Falls keeps the old furnace, hotel ruin and livery.
• Abingdon Muster Grounds — Where the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780 before marching to Kings Mountain; the trail's northern trailhead.