09/30/2025
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Codex of Washington Park, Roanoke, Virginia
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I. Pre-Colonial Keepers of the Land
• Long before ships brought Africans, this land was held by melanated Indigenous nations of the Blue Ridge and Roanoke Valley.
• Monacan, Tutelo/Totero, Saponi, Occaneechi: Siouan-speaking peoples who farmed “Three Sisters” crops, built mounds, and held ceremonies at rivers and springs.
• They were dark-skinned, copper-toned, and melanated, but they were not from Africa — they were the First Peoples of America.
• Trails through this land connected Big Lick (future Roanoke) to buffalo roads and the Great Road.
• After 1600s wars and diseases, many were absorbed into the Iroquois, pushed into mountains, or relabeled by colonizers as “free negro” or “mulatto.”
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II. Early Settlement & Enslavement (1700s–1800s)
• By the mid-1700s, Europeans seized the land. Mark Evans’s mill (18th century) and Peyton Terry’s dairy farm (19th century) sat on what is now Washington Park.
• The Evans/Whitten caretaker’s house (c. 1840) still stands — one of Roanoke’s oldest brick homes.
• Two groups of melanated people labored here:
1. Indigenous Americans (Tutelo, Saponi, Monacan) who were reclassified as “Negro” to erase their sovereignty.
2. Africans brought by ships into Virginia, enslaved and forced into farm labor.
• Census and slave schedules list names under white landowners, blurring these identities together.
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III. Two Streams of Melanated Bloodlines
• Stream One – Indigenous Melanated Americans:
• Native to this soil, with cultures rooted in the land.
• Colonizers relabeled them “colored” or “Negro,” stripping their tribal names and land claims.
• Stream Two – Africans Brought Across the Ocean:
• Captives from Angola, Congo, Senegambia, and West Africa.
• First landed in Virginia in 1619, then forced inland to work farms like Evans/Terry holdings.
• Colonial Trick:
• By calling both groups “Negro,” officials erased the line between Native sovereignty and African captivity.
• Over generations, the two streams blended into one community — the people who would later call Washington Park their commons.
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IV. Birth of Washington Park (1922–1923)
• In 1922, Roanoke purchased land on Orange Avenue and opened Booker T. Washington Park in 1923 as the city’s first park for Black residents.
• White neighborhoods received Elmwood and Highland Parks; Washington Park became the sacred commons of Black Roanoke.
• The caretaker’s cottage became a symbolic anchor.
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V. The Dreamland Era (1936–1947)
• At Orange Avenue & Peach Road stood the Dreamland Recreation Center: a pool, dance hall, and social hub.
• Dreamland was one of the few safe leisure sites for Roanoke’s Black community during segregation.
• Families came from Bedford, Lynchburg, and beyond for baptisms, dances, and holidays.
• Orange Avenue’s widening forced Dreamland’s closure in 1947.
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VI. The Dumping Ground (1940s–1963)
• In the 1940s, Washington Park was turned into a municipal landfill — directly in the heart of Roanoke’s Black neighborhoods.
• Residents endured rats, smoke, toxic fires, and falling property values.
• Oral accounts recall children swimming alongside floating rats.
• Leaders like Rev. R.R. Wilkinson and Rev. James Allison fought until the dump was shut down in 1963 — a Civil Rights victory.
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VII. Renewal & Resistance (1970s–2000s)
• A new public pool opened in the 1970s, symbolizing healing yet showing continued inequity (white areas never had to endure a dump first).
• The landfill cap limited construction; courts and fields were added in “soft zones.”
• The park became a stage for Black joy: family reunions, Juneteenth events, and church gatherings.
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VIII. Preservation Battles & Reclamation (2010s–Present)
• The caretaker’s house fell into ruin, sparking activism to save it as a monument to Black and Indigenous survival.
• In 2022, the old pool closed due to landfill-related instability.
• In 2025, a new pool and pool house opened closer to the Dreamland site, reclaiming joy where it began.
• Washington Park is now part of master planning that blends environmental safety, memory, and new community space.
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IX. The Hidden / Esoteric Layer
• Buried foundations and springs may still hold Indigenous tools, enslaved families’ traces, and Dreamland relics.
• Ley lines cross at the ridge-valley seam, explaining why this site became a hub for both dispossession and resistance.
• The land holds double current:
• Sorrow of erasure (dump, reclassification, broken families).
• Power of joy (baptisms, Dreamland dances, Civil Rights victory).
• Today’s sacred task is to preserve Evans House, honor Dreamland, and memorialize both bloodlines.
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X. Questions Still to Be Asked
• Who were the enslaved people by name on Evans/Terry farms?
• Were Indigenous burials or mounds destroyed in landfill grading?
• What toxins still lie under the soil, and how have they impacted Lincoln Terrace health?
• Who on City Council authorized the dump, and why was this Black neighborhood chosen?
• How can Washington Park become a true memorial site to both Indigenous and African ancestors?
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✨ Summary
Washington Park is not “just a park.” It is:
• An Indigenous corridor — Monacan, Tutelo, Saponi, the melanated First Peoples of this soil.
• An enslaved labor site — worked by Africans forced across the Atlantic.
• A Black sanctuary — Dreamland, baptisms, Juneteenth gatherings.
• A dump turned battleground — closed through Civil Rights organizing in 1963.
• A resurrection site — new pool, preservation of Evans House, reclaiming memory.
🜏 The crucial distinction:
• The melanated Indigenous of America were already here, sovereign caretakers of this land.
• The Africans were brought here and enslaved.
• Colonizers deliberately blurred the line, calling both “Negro,” using a few Africans as intermediaries, and still today hiding their hand by setting one group against another while erasing both.
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📚 Washington Park & Evans House
• https://roanokepreservation.org/friends-of-washington-park-caretakers-cottage-evans-house
• https://www.roanokerambler.com/a-tale-of-two-cottages-in-white-and-black-roanoke-efforts-to-save-history-take-distinct-paths
• https://cardinalnews.org/2024/05/15/roanoke-cottage-named-to-list-of-states-most-endangered-historic-places-more
• https://theroanoker.com/blogging/behind-the-page/historic-preservation-efforts-happening-for-evans-house
• https://www.wdbj7.com/2023/08/08/group-roanoke-residents-try-save-washington-park-evans-house-demolition
• https://www.wsls.com/news/local/2023/09/26/friends-of-washington-park-working-to-preserve-roanokes-black-history
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🗑️ Washington Park Dump & Environmental Racism
• https://www.roanokerambler.com/once-a-city-dump-washington-park-haunted-legacy-of-environmental-racism
• https://distinction-projects.pages.roanoke.edu/environmental-racism-in-roanoke-virginia-a-historical-and-scientific-approach
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🎶 Dreamland Recreation Center
• https://gainsborohistoryproject.org/chapters/chapter-4/dreamland-recreation-center
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🏞️ General Washington Park / Neighborhood Background
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Park%2C_Roanoke%2C_Virginia
•https://planroanoke.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Harrison-Washington-Park.pdf
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🌄 Indigenous / Melanated Peoples Already Here
• https://www.monacannation.gov/our-history.html
• https://www.commonwealth.virginia.gov/virginia-indians/state-recognized-tribes/monacan-tribe
• https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/monacan-indian-nation/
• https://lynchburgmuseum.org/blog/2018/1/9/the-monacan-indian-nation
• https://www.virginiaplaces.org/nativeamerican/occaneechi.html
• https://www.avocamuseum.org/preamerican-revolution-revolution-era/saponi-native-americans
• https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/occaneechi/
• https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/blog/the-occaneechi-story-4309
• https://occoneechee.org/pages/the-occoneechee-saponi-totaro-indian-tribe-of-virginia-and-the-saponi-reservation-in-brunswick-county-va
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutelo
Photo courtesy of The Roanoke Times Overview: The Washington Park Caretakers Cottage dates to ca. 1840 and was built by Jeremiah Whitten on land first associated with a grist mill established by Mark Evans in the mid-18th century that later operated as part of Peyton Terry’s dairy farm in the l...
