Page 264 - Family History

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The first train into Snickersville arrived on schedule July 4, 1900, and Southern
Railway began lobbying Loudoun officials to change the town's locally revered
name, in use since 1830, to a more alluring "Bluemont."

A main reason for Southern's extension was the construction in 1893 of the Blue
Ridge Inn, atop the ridge near a scenic rock outcrop called Bear's Den, overlooking
the Shenandoah Valley. The inn's chef, Jules DeMonet, had been chef at the
White House. By 1900, the inn was fast becoming the area's premier summer

vacation spot. The half-hour wagon ride up the scenic mountain from Bluemont--
as Snickersville became in September of that year--was far better than the five-
mile, 1 1/2-hour jaunt from the Round Hill station because, often, the flats along
the old Snickers Gap Turnpike (now Route 7) were soggy or flooded, and wagons
got mired.

So Round Hill officials incorporated in January 1900 to spruce up the town's image
and try to retain its summer clientele as well as its decades-old position as
Loudoun's leading town of the far west.

Some Round Hill residents recalled that another transportation improvement, the
Snickers Gap Turnpike (Snickersville Turnpike), had given their village its start—
and had begun the demise of Woodgrove, 1 1/2 miles north of Round Hill, on the
older main road west.

The June 1900 ordinances were enacted to ensure that Round Hill would not
become another Woodgrove and began by prohibiting residents from removing
"dirt, sand or rock" from town streets and alleys. They also mandated the removal
of all "obstructions" from public ways, especially "hitched horses so as to obstruct
sidewalks." The main sidewalk, a wooden boardwalk, ran along the north side of
the turnpike, named Loudoun Street in 1901.

Here the summer people paraded, especially on Sundays, watched by locals who
wanted to see the latest in Washington finery. Predictably, the town's three
churches for whites arose by the boardwalk: the Methodist Church in 1889 (it had
moved from Woodgrove), Mount Calvary Episcopal in 1892 and the Baptist
Church in 1905.

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