"He was shrewd and was quite successful in business, and accumulated a considerable sum of money, which he invested in real estate and continued to prosper.
"[1] John Davis was probably born in the 1820s, or possibly as late as the 1830s, and was listed as a Mulatto of mixed race on the census records in Campbell County, Virginia.
Although it is unclear whether he was ever a slave, by the end of the Civil War he had taught himself to read and write and set off for Big Lick, where land was cheap.
"[2] John Davis began the Roanoke Weekly Press in 1891 along with Dr. Robert J. Boland, lawyer Thomas T. Henry, who helped write and edit the newspaper.
It was a wooden frame building of four floors, with rented commercial space and meeting rooms and also included a grocery and restaurant.
"By 1893 Davis also was operating a drugstore, one of the earliest black-owned establishments of its kind in southwestern Virginia, and had employed Isaac D. Burrell, who later became a prominent physician and pharmacist."
His body lay in state at the Davis Hall, and his "handsome casket" was supplied by the Oakey & Woolwine funeral home.
When the Interstate 581 was constructed in 1961, it is possible that John and Ann Davis were re-interred at Coyner Springs, "which used to be a city owned cemetery for indigent residents."