6. Roanoke was once known as…Big Lick
Formerly known as the capital of Blue Ridge, Roanoke is located in the Roanoke Valley, which is full of salt marshes. Because of its location, in 1834 it was named Big Lick. The interesting thing is that four years later after the city got its name, it had a small population of only 50 citizens.
Big Lick was renamed Roanoke in 1881 after the county in which it was situated. The phrase “Rawrenock,” used by the Native Americans to describe the shell-based jewelry worn by the local Indigenous population, is whence the name Roanoke originated. With its rapid development as a hub for the future Norfolk and Western Railway, Roanoke was formally incorporated as a city in 1884.
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New Bedford, Massachusetts, once the ‘Whaling Capitol of the World’, & now the leading port of the nascent US Offshore Wind Energy, was once known as ‘Bedford’ until it was learned that Massachusetts already had a city/town known as Bedford in the upper part of the state.