It was the first road to connect the interior of the country with the populated coastline, and allowed about 300,000 people to settle there after 25 years of use.

Martin's Station was a frontier fort originally located at nearby Rose Hill, Virginia.

"Throughout the period of the Wilderness Road's great activity it remained the important intermediate station," according to historian William Allen Pusey.

It is named for the early explorer of the region and namesake of Martinsville, Virginia, Brigadier General Joseph Martin.

His widow remarried to Thomas A. Taylor in 1885, and when a railroad stop was placed nearby, a mapping error called this "Caylor, Virginia".