The Roanoke River is a river in southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States, 410 mi (660 km) long. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains southeast across the Piedmont to Albemarle Sound. An important river throughout the history of the United States, it was the site of early settlement in the Virginia Colony and the Carolina Colony. Most of its upper course in Virginia between the City of Roanoke and Clarksville is known as the Staunton River. It is impounded along much of its middle course to form a chain of reservoirs.
In 2011, American Rivers named the Roanoke (Staunton) River the 3rd Most Endangered River in the country. It earned this position due to the possibility of uranium mining on one of its tributaries at the Coles Hill Uranium Deposit near Danville, Virginia.
Read more about Roanoke River: Description, History
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“It is ... despair at the mutability of all created things that links the Artist and the Ascetic—a desire to purify and preserve—to set oneself apart—somehow—from the river flowing onward to the grave.”
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