Celebrate Cambria's 150th Birthday!

Cambria, c. 1890: View north on Yellow Sulphur Turnpike (now Cambria Street).

Historic Cambria...for 150 years a center for transport and commerce in Montgomery and surrounding counties. When the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad tracks reached Christiansburg in 1857, they followed the level land along Crab Creek on the north side of Zion Hill. There the first depot was built where Yellow Sulphur Turnpike crossed the tracks. Around the depot a commercial center and community grew, first named Bangs in 1873, later Ronald, and finally Cambria in 1906.

As the shipping point for all Montgomery and Floyd county freight, as well as the transfer point for VPI-bound cadets and vacationers visiting the mineral hot springs in the area, it remained for generations a vital commercial center with banks, whole and retail establishments, hostelrys, and livery stables.

When more modern travel and trading centers grew in the county and rail passenger service ended, Cambria was bypassed. Today the old commercial intersection at the cvorner of Depot and Cambria Streets remains as one of the few commercial locales in Montgomery County which still retains the structures and the flavor of the past.

Come spend an afternoon exploring Cambria and environs.