On October 19, 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the first official visit of a U.S. president, arrived in downtown Roanoke. He stood on the platform of the train parked on Jefferson Street waving to thousands of Roanokers waving flags. He descended to a waiting Packard convertible that, with a motorcade of two other convertibles, wove its way through Roanoke with President Roosevelt smiling and waving to the thousands that lined the streets on the way to the newly built veterans hospital.
On that beautiful Friday afternoon he dedicated the state of the art hospital vowing to give veterans “the best treatment which medical and surgical science can supply.”
His address, which can be read online at TheRoanokeStar.com finished with: “That is the way of American progress. This symbol, which we dedicate today, will live all through the years to remind us that we are going to make progress in an American way.”
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14765
