Brocks Gap photographs

Access and use

Location of collection:
James Madison University
Second Floor Room 203, MSC 1704
Carrier Library
James Madison University
880 Madison Drive
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Tiffany Cole
Phone: (540) 568-3444
Phone: (540) 568-3612
Fax: (540) 568-3405
Restrictions:

Collection open to research. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection. Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the James Madison University Special Collections Library to use this collection.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to the James Madison University Special Collections Library. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library Reference Desk (library-special@jmu.edu).

Preferred citation:

[identification of item], [box #, folder #], Brocks Gap photographs, circa 1915, SC 0410, James Madison University Special Collections, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Summary

Extent:
0.08 cubic feet 1 folder
Creator:
Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates
Abstract:
Two black-and-white photographs of the Brocks Gap area of Rockingham County, Virginia.
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

[identification of item], [box #, folder #], Brocks Gap photographs, circa 1915, SC 0410, James Madison University Special Collections, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Background

Scope and content:

Two black-and-white photographs of the Brocks Gap area of Rockingham County, Virginia.

One photograph is an unaddressed real photo postcard of two men in a horse-drawn carriage along a dirt road and beside a rocky cliff. The postcard has a printed label on the front: "Gap Rock Near Cootes Store VA."

One photograph, mounted on photo board, captures a man and woman standing outside a two-story clapboard building. The following handwritten caption is inscribed on the back of the photo board: "Lizzie Fawley Custer (sister to Daniel Fawley) & husband, John, their store in Genoa Va." This same photograph is found on page 95 of Lena Albrite Turner and Pat Turner Ritchie's Images of America: Brocks Gap (2005). Per the caption in the book, the photograph shows the Tunis Post Office, current day Runions Creek, with Postmaster John H. Fawley and his wife Lizzie Fawley Custer. The post office was in operation from 1900 to 1907. The photograph is attributed to the private collection of Viola Ritchie Sager.

Biographical / historical:

Brocks Gap is an area of approximately 200 square miles in northwestern Rockingham County formed by the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. Due to primitive infrastructure that required fording the North Fork three times in order to exit Brocks Gap, Elder John Kline (1797-1864), Brethren Church leader and resident of nearby Broadway, proposed making improvements to Brocks Gap. These plans included cutting down the Gap rocks, making a road in the place of the cut, and erecting a bridge across one of the three fords. By 1880, the remaining two fords were replaced with a new road and bridge.

Brocks Gap includes the unincorporated communities of Bergton, Criders, Fulks Run, Genoa, and Yankeetown.

Acquisition information:
Purchased at Jeffrey S. Evans Associates Summer Americana auction (day 3), 8/29/2025.
Custodial history:

From the collection of Priscilla Blosser-Rainey, Timberville, Virginia.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard