This map depicts three of the routes of the Appalachian Trail in Southwestern Virginia -- the route laid out in 1931 by Shirley Cole and Roy Ozmer, the route used between 1933-1952, and the present route of the trail. The original route looped south of Roanoke and Salem to the junction of Floyd, Franklin, and Roanoke counties, before proceeding south toward Fisher's Peak in North Carolina. After 1933, the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club convinced the ATC to shift the northern portion of this trail section north and west of Roanoke to bring it across Catawba Mountain, the location of Tinker Cliffs and McAfee Knob. Between 1933-1952, the section of the trail east of the New River changed often, first because of the arrival of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and later when easements expired or were acquired for the trail. After 1952, the ATC abandoned this original route of the AT and moved the trail more than 50 miles west to its present location west of Blacksburg.

A small portion of a much larger map of the public lands in the United States in 1953, created by the U.S. Department of the Interior, that shows the region of Southwest Virginia where the Appalachian Trail was located from 1930-1952.

This map depicts the Appalachian Trail between Roanoke and Fries, Virginia in 1940, including the legendary stretch over the Pinnacles of Dan. This original route of the Appalachian Trail was abandoned in 1952, when the Trail was rerouted west into the Jefferson National Forest to the route it follows today.