Home
Virginia Review Archives Of Printed Magazine From March/April 2004 to July/August 2008

Lost Communities

The Community Design Assistance Center Visits the Lost Communities of Virginia

By Terri Fisher and Elizabeth Gilboy

The community design assistance center (CDAC) is an outreach center of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies (CAUS) at Virginia Tech working to improve the natural and built environments for the people of Virginia. Under the supervision of CAUS faculty and CDAC staff, student employees provide landscape architecture, architecture, interior design, and planning assistance to government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community groups from throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia that are unable to afford the services of a private consultant. Clients are provided with conceptual designs for projects including open space master plans, parks, greenways, downtown design guidelines, building façades and expansions, and interior space plans while students receive real world planning and design experience.

Where possible, CDAC incorporates their philosophy of “healthy living by design” to improve our environment. Examples are rain gardens to collect and filter stormwater runoff, park and greenway designs to encourage physical activity and interaction with nature, outdoor classrooms that encourage teachers to take students outdoors to observe and learn about their environment, and buildings with “green” roofs that absorb stormwater and decrease the roof’s ambient heat thus decreasing the building’s interior temperature.

Our conceptual designs are often used by clients to pursue funding opportunities that enable the clients to see the projects through to completion. The projects help to enrich life for community residents and enhance a sense of pride in the community.

CURIOSITY

Since CDAC’s inception in 1988, we have traveled throughout Virginia visiting literally hundreds of places. The nature of our work has taken us to and through many communities that have undergone transformations over the years related to factors like industry, agriculture, transportation, land use, and recreation. The struggles of Virginia’s cities like Richmond, Petersburg, Danville, and Martinsville with the loss of the once booming tobacco and textile industries are examples that are in the news. The empty factories and warehouses, quiet tobacco markets, and accompanying loss of jobs and vacant residences all signal the loss of a community. While these larger cities work to reinvent and reinvigorate themselves, what of the smaller rural communities throughout the Commonwealth that once thrived on a much smaller level and today have populations of just a few hundred?

Click image to view ad; click name to connect with advertiser

Stearns & Wheler, LLC

The small rural places that retain abandoned buildings still recognizable as banks, stores, schools, and other markers of prosperity and have signs of life like people living in the houses or a functioning Post Office, fostered the greatest amount of questions: Why was this community settled here? Why is it no longer prosperous? When did things change? Are there people still living here who remember the boom times?

Curiosity about these now quiet rural places led to the Lost Communities of Virginia project highlighting thirty communities from throughout the Commonwealth. In 1999, CDAC Architecture Intern Kirsten Sparenborg began a tour of 2,600 small communities, most listed in the DeLorme Virginia Atlas and Gazetteer. Some were also recommended by faculty members and others were not. Based on interesting architectural features, including buildings and other relics of the past like old mills, stores, banks, lime kilns, or abandoned railroad tracks, and a sense of decline, the number of communities was narrowed to 548, all documented through preliminary photographs. With the help of Virginia Tech faculty, the number of communities was further reduced to 130 places that were studied in further detail. This study included discovering each community’s original industry, mode of transportation, or way of life that contributed to their original development and prosperity. This information was used to develop a wide cross section of community types located in regions throughout the state.

Ultimately, 30 communities were chosen typical of the settlement of Virginia including: company towns, farming communities, cultural enclaves, courthouse towns, transportation hubs, resort communities, and town substitutes (places with service structures where people come together daily, weekly, or less frequently, but few if any people live there). Kirsten revisited the 30 chosen communities between 2000 and 2002 to document the buildings and features through contemporary black and white photographs and the stories of the community through interviews with long time residents. The CDAC’s Outreach Coordinator Terri Fisher is currently developing the broader historical context of how these 30 small communities once contributed to the development of Virginia and the nation. The result will be the Lost Communities of Virginia book, to be published in late 2007, highlighting life in the communities and their reasons for prosperity and decline through historical information, contemporary and historical photographs, maps, and the voices of residents.

WHY LOST?

The title Lost Communities of Virginia often leads people to tell us about places that are long gone such as New Castle in Hanover County or Fairwood in Grayson County. Others take issue with their community being labeled as “lost.” One reason for this confusion may be Bryan Clark Green’s book, Lost Virginia: Vanished Architecture of the Old Dominion that focuses on buildings that are completely gone from the landscape. We have chosen to use the word “lost” more broadly to mean that the original industry, mode of transportation, or way of life that defined the community has vanished leaving a different life for residents. A closed mine or mill changes the population and business and economic profile of a community, as does the re-routing of a highway or lost train service. Under our definition, most places can be considered lost communities including the revitalized downtown that now caters to tourists through its boutique shops and the small town that has become a bedroom community for a larger urban area. Both have recreated and reenergized themselves, but life is different than it was when the town was built. The original industry, mode of transportation, or way of life has been lost.

CONTINUALLY CHANGING

Recognizing that communities are seldom static, an epilogue will discuss changes that have occurred in the communities since they were last visited nearly five years ago. While it might seem that small, often isolated, rural communities of less than five hundred inhabitants, which most of the Lost Communities of Virginia are, would continue to decline, that is not true in all cases. The town of Boydton in Mecklenburg County, built around the county courthouse, has received a number of grants to revitalize its downtown area, improve its streetscape, and restore its historic tavern. A medical center recently opened in some of Boydton’s previously empty downtown storefronts. The tiny community of Sharps in Richmond County, once a steamboat stop on the Rappahannock River, has seen the rehabilitation of the home of one of its namesakes, abandoned and rundown when Kirsten visited in 2001. Other communities, like that of Stonega in Wise County where the coal mines closed in 1952, struggle for their very existence with the nearby coal company buying up houses to increase strip mining, despite Stonega’s designation as a National Register Historic District. Still other communities like Capeville in Northampton County and Mineral in Louisa County face development pressures as urban dwellers look for quieter places and less expensive real estate.

TOURISM LINKS

A few of the communities, like Sweet Chalybeate in Alleghany County and Eggleston in Giles County, were built around tourism and the lure of the natural healing powers of springs. These were early resorts popular in the 19th century and just two of many that are all but forgotten today. Interestingly, some of the communities that would never have considered a tourism link in their early days are now hoping that their uniqueness, history, and dramatic landscapes can help them use tourism to their advantage today. Derby in Wise County and Pocahontas in Tazewell County are two communities that hope to use their status as intact coal mining towns to entice visitors to learn more about their industrial past. Derby, built in the 1920s, is in the early phases of this dream, recently receiving recognition as a National Register Historic District and improving water and sewer service to the community. Pocahontas, built in the 1880s, has received federal funding to stabilize several of its landmark buildings including the opera house and company store and to create a trail on the old railroad bed from Pocahontas to Bramwell, West Virginia. The Pocahontas Exhibition Mine has drawn visitors to town since 1938, but their hope is to make the town an attraction as well. With the roofs behind the Victorian cast iron storefronts caving in, the town still has a long way to go, but with the help of Historic Pocahontas Inc., they hope to reinvent themselves. Paint Bank in Craig County, once a small iron mining community, was revitalized through the work of benefactors John and Nancy Mulheren who created a small resort in the mountains, rehabilitating the train depot and a railroad car into a bed and breakfast, adding a themed restaurant to the general store, and starting a buffalo farm. Plans to renovate the old hotel and mill were slowed after Mr. Mulheren’s untimely death, but the community has become a destination for visitors from the Roanoke area and beyond.

Click image to view ad; click name to connect with advertiser

Virginia Review Directory of State & Local Government Officials

Many of the Lost Communities of Virginia including Derby, Pocahontas, and Paint Bank are isolated, requiring a map, some perseverance, and a healthy dose of curiosity to find them. Indeed, most of the 548 communities visited were off the beaten path for the average visitor. But those who live in Virginia know that the most interesting places and most beautiful landscapes are found when you get off the Interstates and main roads and take the road less traveled. Visiting 548 places also required plotting paths and creating routes to minimize backtracking. The road time required to visit the places also helped identify curvy roads, dirt roads, bumpy roads, narrow roads, and dangerous roads as well as the location of gas stations, restaurants, and other sites of interest. Many people use back road drives for recreational purposes including bicyclists, classic car clubs, and people out for a quiet weekend drive. Motorcyclists are often in search of these routes and have become a large demographic with a good amount of expendable income. Ultimately, CDAC plans to develop a Motorcyclist’s Guide to Lost Communities of Virginia book using the more than 40 routes plotted throughout the state. In the meantime, CDAC is creating a series of motorcycle brochures focusing on different areas in the state. The first brochure, the Motorcyclist’s Guide to Lost Communities of Virginia’s Blue Ridge, highlighting routes in southwest Virginia, was developed in cooperation with the Blue Ridge Travel Association and is available at the Virginia Welcome Centers in Bristol, Lambsburg, and Rocky Gap, as well as CDAC.

OTHER RESULTS

The book and motorcycle guide are just two results of the Lost Communities of Virginia project. Other offshoots include a photographic exhibit, presentations, note cards, and matted prints. The photographic exhibit features fourteen of the communities in the book in twenty frames. Text describing the history of each community is included and has been used for a Virginia Standards of Learning based program by the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History. Other venues that have hosted the exhibit include the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke, the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Crab Orchard Museum in Tazewell, Old Dominion University, the University of Maryland at College Park, and Virginia Tech. A multimedia presentation explores the history of the communities and their contributions to Virginia history through photographs and the voices of residents. Photographs from the 548 initial communities have been used to create note cards and matted prints for sale to raise funds for book publication. All of the photographs and recorded interviews for the book will ultimately be archived in Virginia Tech Special Collections for public use.

Click image to view ad; click name to connect with advertiser

Commonwealth Help Wanted

There is a cautionary tale about tourism to consider. There was a 31st community to have been included in the Lost Communities of Virginia book and motorcycle guide. However, the community decided that they would rather retain their quiet way of life just as it is, with only the intrusion of an occasional tourist. Their reasoning may seem clearer with the example of Moneta in Bedford County that is near Smith Mountain Lake, a manmade lake that dammed the Roanoke River in the 1960s. While Moneta may have received some early business from the lake, by the 1990s larger stores had been built away from the original community to accommodate the area’s increasing population and the traffic had become such that a bypass was built around the community. Moneta’s main street was blocked at the railroad tracks for safety leaving a dead end and a community split in two. Meanwhile, “Downtown Moneta” is a new development being built a mile down the road while many of the original downtown’s buildings are vacant. While the changes to Moneta are an unintended consequence of the development of Smith Mountain Lake, certainly it is important for communities to consider the changes that tourism may bring and plan how they want to preserve their history for future generations.

The intent of the Lost Communities of Virginia project is to bring awareness to the unique and sometimes obscure histories of small communities. We are not actively preserving the buildings of the communities with hammer and nails, but rather passively preserving the history of the communities with camera and words. The idea is that every place is more than it seems today and that awareness of the history of a seemingly insignificant place will help to improve your own sense of place in the world.

The revitalized downtown with the boutique shops—was it once a major transportation center for the surrounding area with passenger and freight train stops? The bedroom community—are the houses built on former tobacco fields? The community with the abandoned stores and banks—did timber from the surrounding forest help build the railroad? Perhaps the Lost Communities of Virginia will encourage others to look beyond the surface of their own communities and preserve their own past.

BENEFACTORS

The Lost Communities of Virginia project has received funding from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech, note card and print sales, and chapter sponsorship. For more information, please visit http://cdac.arch.vt.edu. Additional information about the Lost Communities of Virginia project will be in the forthcoming Notes on Virginia publication from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.