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Pandapas Pond is named after James Pandapas, who was born and raised in eastern Massachusetts. He prided himself on his contributions to the local area but noted in an oral history interview, “For people to remember me for the puddle between the mountains is kind of ironic. If I should be remembered for anything it's for my keeping a needle trade plant out of Blacksburg or a cement company out of Ellett Valley.”1
During the Depression, he trained himself to be an architect, but was unable to get a license because he lacked the formal education. He moved to Giles County after the Celanese Corporation announced plans for a new plant on the New River, and started speculating in building low-cost housing for factory workers attracted by the plant.
When during WWII the War Production Board limited construction to just defense areas, he moved to Blacksburg and started building low-cost housing for the workers who were employed at the Hercules Powder Plant (Radford Arsenal).
His customers were willing to commute 14 miles in order to live in a college town, rather than the industrial atmosphere near the arsenal. Pandapas himself bought the first of the 60 houses he built at Airport Acres. As described by Pandapas, Blacksburg was a small ands conservative college town, a good place to raise his family. “It didn't have any amenities as you would expect. There wasn't even a hotel or motel, a decent restaurant. There was one theater, three drug stores, two banks, and a filling station. It had a population of 1500 people. One square mile was the area. It was the size...probably smaller than Pembroke is now.” (http://spec.lib.vt.edu/mss/pandapas.htm)
He made a good profit off Airport Acres, which transitioned into university-oriented housing after WWII. He built more projects in Narrows and Pearisburg after WWWII, in Giles County. In 1948, he bought 500 acres at Poverty Creek for the timber, to supply his sawmill that created lumber for his houses.
During WWII, his brother in New Jersey started Electro-Tec , a company that electroplated “slip rings” used in for radar antennae to transmit the signal from the rotating antennae to the electronic instruments used by the radar operators. The military grew heavily dependent upon Electro-Tec’s products during the Korean War, and required him to diversify production sites as a national security measure. That’s why he opened a factory in Blacksburg, which until then was a low-wage community where Virginia Tech had little competition.
Pandapas had difficulty attracting skilled engineers and other workers to Blacksburg. He dammed Poverty Creek and developed Poverty Pond as a recreational facility for his employees. The public was not allowed to use the site.
After Pandapas and his brother split up their business partnership, in 1953 he started Poly-Scientific (the first offices were next to the Lyric Theatre ) and went into competition with Electro-Tec. To keep the area attractive to skilled workers, he also opposed (successfully) plans to attract textile factories to the county, fearing short-term employment would leave the area with an empty building once the manufacturer moved to a new community with fresh economic incentives.
He also blocked a cement factory in Ellett Valley in 1965-66. Montgomery County business leaders salivated over the potential jobs and tax revenues, but Pandapas feared the air pollution. In the end, he purchased the quarry site (now home of Woodland Hills Estates and a country club) from Louisville Cement Company, paying them the same high price/acre they had paid the farmers. Pandapas sold Poly-Scientific and, later in his career, lost his assets in a failed business venture.
When he sold Poly-Scientific, Pandapas retained what was known by then as Pandapas Pond. He converted it into a public recreation site, but it developed into a party site with litter and inappropriate uses. The US Forest Service purchased Pandapas Pond, after declining his offer to donate it if the Federal Government would develop recreational facilities – including an overnight campground. The Forest Service planned to minimize development at the pond, and chose instead to purchase the property without any deed restrictions.
Today, the Poverty Creek area is heavily used by mountain bikers when Virginia Tech is in session. Throughout the year, there are often people walking quietly around the pond, observing the beavers (look for gnawing on tree trunks) or listening to the birds. It is a natural area that receives a great deal of passive recreation use, while nearby the woods echo with the sounds of bikers.
Questions to consider:
 Forest Service bathrooms built at edge of Pandapas Pond |
 Forest Service replanting at edge of Pandapas Pond |
For more background, read:
 baby geese (goslings) on Pandapas Pond |
 mature Canada Geese on Pandapas Pond |
