Route 58 stretches across all five hundred miles of Virginia, from the sandy shores of the Atlantic to the waterfalls and wild ponies of the Blue Ridge Highlands. Weird, quirky and intriguing legends and lore lie along this historic highway, including a UFO landing in South Hill, Virginia Beach's "witch duck" controversy of 1706 and Nat Turner's bloody insurrection in 1831. Country music icon Johnny Cash played his final shows at the world-famous Carter Fold. Civil War skirmishes touched towns. The "Wreck of the Old 97" happened in Danville, and haunting memories of a schoolhouse lost to a tornado remain in Rye Cove. Author Joe Tennis provides a guide to Route 58 with a trail of tales, accompanied by easy driving directions and vivid photography.
Joe Tennis is the author of many books including Virginia Rail Trails; Washington County, Virginia; Sullivan County, Tennessee; Haunts of Virginia's Blue Ridge Highlands; The Marble and Other Ghost Tales of Tennessee and Virginia; and Finding Franklin: Mystery of the Lost State Capitol. He has written about rail trails across Virginia since 1992 for newspapers and magazines such as Blue Ridge Country, Bristol Herald Courier, The Roanoke Times, Virginia Living and Hampton Roads Magazine.