Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Elliston, VA

Elliston is an unincorporated census-designated place (CDP) in Montgomery County, Virginia, lying between the city of Roanoke and the town of Christiansburg in the southwestern part of the state.

Elliston was originally known as Big Spring, named for the large spring on the farm settled by James Robertson in 1762 and purchased by James Barnett in 1767.

Elliston's depot was an important stopping point on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, and later on the Norfolk and Western Railway.

In the late 1880s, investors promoted Big Spring as "Carnegie City," hoping to build a large industrial and railroad center there, but the railroad instead chose Big Lick — later Roanoke — for its main shops, and the boom collapsed.

After the Carnegie City scheme failed, the community was renamed Elliston in honor of Major William M. Ellis, a prominent local landowner who lived at the Madison farm.

U.S. Highway 11/460 divides Elliston into two distinct neighborhoods: "Oldtown," which formed along the Valley Road in the 1850s, and "The Brake," a predominantly African-American community that developed after the Civil War.

Five Elliston-area properties — the Barnett House, Big Spring Baptist Church, Pompey Callaway House, Fotheringay, and the Madison Farm Historic and Archeological District — were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

The Barnett House, also known as Big Spring, is a two-story brick home built about 1808 by David Barnett on the family's spring-fed farm.

Elliston's Big Spring Mill, a water-powered gristmill established on the South Fork of the Roanoke River more than 175 years ago, is one of the last small independent flour mills operating in Virginia, known regionally for its seasoned flour.

Elliston was first listed as a census-designated place in the 2010 census, formed from part of the deleted Elliston-Lafayette CDP plus additional area.