Let us review this famous driveway. Long before the coming of the white men, the Indians followed almost a natural trail, as they journeyed back and forth into the richest hunting grounds known anywhere in all their world. Along it they found the big elk, bear, buffalo, wolves, foxes, wild turkeys and smaller game. The first pioneers followed this Indian Trail, as they called it. Then, as they developed the country more and more, they brought in horses and oxen. This made a wider road and soon they were rolling their hogsheads of tobacco and grain over it. They carried their products to market in heavy wagons, swapping their wild bees' honey, venison, grain, and hand-woven linen for the precious salt, sugar, iron and lead. Over this road came an ever increasing number of other pioneers to settle near those already living in the rich Valley. They brought their furniture, guns, and families and a most fervent respect for the priceless liberty to be found there. Liberty where one could worship God as one pleased. Liberty where one's children could share in the development and in a new country, full of opportunities. Historians claim that the young George Washington surveyed this road through the Valley. Engineers today say that he did a wonderful work and that they would make a few changes in it. Let us look at some of the famous names of those who lived near or travelled over it. Some of them lived within sight of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains while others visited from one end of it to the other. As one travels near Winchester, he reads the names of John Marshall, George Washington, and General Morgan. From Charlottesville one reads of Patrick Henry visiting Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. There, too, were Lewis and Clarke, men famous in the development of our West, the McCormicks, the Houstons, the Austins and other noted Virginians who went West and settled there. By now the Road was being called by many names, such as "The Old Indian Trail", "The Great Road", the "Settlers's Road", while still others called it the "Wilderness Road". Then came peace and prosperity after the French and Indian War and that of the Revolution. Finer horses and carriages were being brought into the Valley and so a better road had to be built. Some thrifty soul suggested having a splendid road which should be maintained by tollgates. And so was built the famous "Valley Pike". This was the pride, not only of the Valley, but of all Virginia and the South.