While West Virginia is this year celebrating her 100th birthday, Roane County has the distinction of already passing that milestone. The county of Roane was created by an act of the Virginia General Assembly on March 11, 1856, seven years before West Virginia became a state. But long before 1856, probably 1814, the first families were living in what is now Roane County. Parts of this county had been surveyed as early as 1785; had been visited by Jesse Hughes, the great scout and Indian fighter, as early a 1774, and a party of soldiers from Fort Pitt, (Pittsburgh) had passed through in 1765.
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