News & Blog

Building, Value—for a Century

The Roanoke Times publishes a much loved column entitled “What’s On Your Mind?”  Readers chime in with questions on a multitude of topics, from which regulations mopeds and scooters must adhere to, to where you can go to learn to play bagpipes.  WOYM purports to answer those questions both thoroughly and succinctly.  A full list of these fun and engaging questions can be found HERE.

Imagine our thrill when we discovered that the subject of the Sunday, Nov 23 post was none other than Norwich School, built by our founders, Jim and AP Martin, almost a century ago!  That’s right, close to 100 years!

Audrey Humphrey of Roanoke asked if the building at 2218 Roanoke Ave was ever, in fact, a school.  Ray Cox responded with historian Nelson Harris emailed quotes “The brick structure was completed for the 1921-22 school year at a cost of $20,000, with Martin Brothers being the contractor.”  While the verbiage  further elaborates on the full history of the property , the mention of our company from projects so many years ago got us thinking:  What other local privately owned companies, conducting business in the early twentieth century, are still in business today?  If you know of any, tell us about them on our

                                                 Facebook page!!