A Brief History of the Village of Ferrum, Virginia: 1892 - 2019

This history provides an account of the origin and growth of a vibrant railroad village in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. With the coming of the Roanoke & Southern Railroad in 1892, a sleepy crossroads becomes for a while in the early twentieth century the busiest freight station on the ＂Punkin’ Vine＂ rail line between Roanoke, Virginia and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. When Prohibition provided the impetus for a multimillion-dollar illicit whiskey business, Ferrum became the mercantile heart of the ＂wettest county＂ in the nation. A massive federal crackdown on the moonshiners in 1935, a devastating fire in 1940, and a greatly improved road system ended the heyday of the railroad village. Today no freight trains stop in Ferrum, and none of the six passenger trains that once served the village survives. Arguably a shadow of its former self, but the beneficiary of a colorful past, the village today is home to a few businesses, Ferrum College, The Blue Ridge Institute & Museum, and is one of the first stops on the Crooked Road: Virginia’s Blue Ridge Music Heritage Trail.¬¬