White Gate

The White Gate community is a wide green valley of farmland and old homes in the extreme southwestern corner of Giles County. The Stinsons first settled the area in the 1780s. They established their homestead in the “Flat Hollow” section of the community near the forks of Kimberling and Walker’s Creek. The Stinsons were of German descent so they were adept with smelting ores. They mined manganese ore from Brushy Mountain (Lewey’s Mountain) forging this material into plowshares, kettles, and various farm and household equipment.

The second family, the Carrs, settled the area west of the present White Gate Cemetery. In 1792 the Banes, who came from Tom’s Creek, were the third family to build their home in White Gate just east of the present Vest Funeral Home. The first people to live in White Gate named it “Rye Meadows” because of the open fields of wild rye growing in creek bottoms. Later they changed the name to “Banesville” which continued for the voting precinct until the 1950s.

The first post office was established in John Bane’s home with a white gate near the house. He submitted “Broadway” to the Postal Department who rejected it because there was already a Broadway in Rockingham County. He submitted other names, and as a last resort used the name “White Gate” which the Postal Department accepted. This post office continued from 1842 to 1963.

The community became well known as an educational center for the county and the area with the establishment of White Gate Presbyterian Academy. Students came from far away to live in the community and attend the academy. The academy was a two-story building made of brick for the first floor and white weatherboard for the second. In 1918 White Gate High School opened and continued as a four-year high school until 1938.

There have been two gristmills in the community located on Walker’s Creek. Dams were made of wood. John Bane built the first one in the early 1800s, and Samuel Bane built the second one in 1856 about three miles down stream from the first. Floods eventually destroyed both of these mills.

In 1926 Henry Bane, the son of Samuel Bane, constructed a concrete dam and operated the mill until his death in 1938. On August 26, 1920, a huge storm came to White Gate on the property of W.B. Wright. Destruction began near the crest of a spot known as the “Doubles” where Flat Top and Brushy Mountain intersect. The downpour ripped out great trees, moved thousands of tons of earth and huge boulders tearing out a gorge thirty to fifty feet deep and a quarter of a mile wide.

Today White Gate remains a rural community in which beautiful scenery along Walker Creek can be viewed in a leisurely drive along Route 42.