Jun 9, 2009

Abingdon, Virginia

The land on which the town of Abingdon is situated was originally surveyed between the years 1748 and 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker and was part of the Great Road that Colonel William Byrd III ordered cut through the wilderness on to Kingsport, Tennessee.

In 1760, famed frontiersman, Daniel Boone, named the area Wolf Hills, after his dogs were attacked by a pack of wolves during a hunting expedition. 

The town of Abingdon was possibly named after Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, the ancestral home of Martha Washington. 

Barter Theatre, located in Abingdon, Virginia, opened on June 10, 1933. It is one of the longest running professional theatres in the nation. In 1933, when the country was in the middle of the Great Depression, most patrons were not able to pay the full ticket price. Robert Porterfield, founder of the theatre, offered admittance by letting the local people pay with food goods, hence the name "Barter". 

The Martha Washington Inn is a historic hotel located in Abingdon, Virginia. Originally built in 1832 by General Francis Preston, hero of the War of 1812, for his family of nine children, over the course of the last 174 years, the building has served as an upscale women's college, a Civil War hospital and barracks, and as a residence for visiting actors of the Barter Theatre. 

Source: Wikipedia