It began with wild game roaming the valleys of the east, grazing on the lush vegetation of the river valleys, creating a pathway in their search for food. Early Native people began to use the animal pathway to settle the Appalachian region.

This pathway became known as the Great Warrior’s Path as Iroquois from the north began to move south, warring with other bands of more loosely organized woodland people. Eventually, it became a path for trade.

The path began around the Great Lakes winding into western Maryland and through the Shenandoah Valley. In North Carolina, the path joined with the Cherokee Indian trading route.

By the early 1700s, Philadelphia was a chief port and many Europeans fleeing religious oppression, famine, and poverty landed on the shores of eastern Pennsylvania. Germanic and Scots-Irish people, settlers who had cut all ties and who had nothing to lose, bravely set out into the wilderness.

The Warrior’s Path became the main route for a trickle of humanity that became a mass migration. Simple carts and two-wheeled carriages gave way to massive Conestoga wagons. The Treaty of Lancaster officially created the Great Wagon Road in July 1744. By 1775, the road stretched 700 miles.

According to historian Carl Bridenbaugh, “In the last sixteen years of the colonial era, southbound traffic along the Great Wagon Road was numbered in the tens of thousands. It was the most heavily traveled road in all America.”

Big Lick, which became Roanoke in 1882, was an important stop along the Great Wagon Road. Here the road split. By taking a southern direction into Carolina and Georgia, the road became known as the Carolina Road. To the west into Tennessee, it became known as the Wilderness Road. Because of its prominence, Roanoke attracted its share of settlers. Today, Roanoke is the largest metropolitan area along another “Great Road,” the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Like the Great Wagon Road before it, the Blue Ridge Parkway is the most heavily traveled road in the National Park Service system, attracting millions of visitors each year.

Roanoke Explorer Batteau (replica) This batteau is a replica of a James River batteau, which was a flat-bottomed, low-sided cargo boat, first used on the nearby James River. These long, narrow boats were introduced in 1771 and rapidly became popular on the many rivers of the region. In fact, batteaux were used on some area rivers up until the late-19th century. Most batteau operators were African-American, either enslaved or free, who played a vital role in local development during this period. Follow the trail between the Blacksmith Shop and the Houtz Barn to the riverside camp and boat landing.