Virginia Historical Markers Launched at StoppingPoints.com

College Station, TX, April 22, 2015 --(PR.com)-- StoppingPoints.com, a guide for finding historical markers and points of interest throughout the United States, has just launched a new and extensive section thoroughly covering the historical markers of Virginia.

The new Virginia StoppingPoints section lists and pinpoints over 2,000 markers within the state. Most markers are mapped by county, by city, and individually, allowing history buffs to easily locate them when visiting "The Old Dominion State."

Bill Lawson, Editor-in-Chief for StoppingPoints.com, states, "We believe our Virginia historical site guide is probably the most useful of any guide online for history buffs. Our researchers located and documented a comprehensive set of locations from a variety of authoritative information sources, and our mapping and thematic association pages enable people to rapidly locate points of interest."

The section allows users to navigate by Va. counties and cities in order to view maps pinpointing all historical markers for each area. While some counties have relatively few historical sites, others contain dozens of the small, gray-and-black marker icons, such as the page for Fairfax.

The site includes some of the top best-known cultural landmarks in the state, such as the Edgar Allan Poe page which maps the old stone house that is now the Poe Museum in Richmond, and includes the street address, photos, museum phone number, and website.

Other features in the site provide maps of historic locations based upon various themes. For instance, there has been a recent spike in interest with U.S. Civil War locations due to the April 2015 Sesquicentennial Anniversary of the end of the war -- StoppingPoints provides a map of all the historic places in Virginia that have some connection with the Civil War, such as battlefields or cemeteries. "Mapping these locations together is extremely helpful to Civil War enthusiasts who desire to plan roadtrips to visit historically significant sites," said Lawson. "Likewise, genealogy researchers often wish to find a map pinpointing all the older cemeteries in an area -- and, we've provided this, too."

The simplicity of the user-experience and straightforward delivery of info masks the complexity involved with creating large guides for local information. StoppingPoints encountered numerous challenges in standardizing the Virginia data and building the guide.

"Most historic places sites only list out locations by counties," said Lawson. "But, Stopping Points also cross-lists historic places by their cities, since enthusiasts commonly seek such points of interest according to city. In Virginia's case, this is quite complicated due to how our optimal page naming standards are challenged by the state's treatment of some cities as geopolitical areas identical to counties. In addition to straightforward counties, and the independent cities that are treated similar to counties, Virginia also has counties that are named 'City', and some counties and cities that share identical names."

StoppingPoints continues to enhance and expand the Virginia data and site utilites. Upcoming features will likely include tools for users to add comments, questions, and data to the site and features allowing individuals to record cemetery gravestone information (in support of genealogical research). Other features expected to release very soon include special categorization pages listing updated member features, nationwide Civil War location maps for those planning historical vacations, guides to historic bed and breakfast inns, and expansion to yet more states' historical stopping points.