Appalachia Town

Wise County, Virginia

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Appalachia Town Hall is located at 508 West Main Street, Appalachia, VA 24216.
Phone: 276‑565‑3900.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

Wise County was settled in the early-mid-nineteenth century by mostly Scots-Irish subsistence farmers. Germans were also represented in smaller numbers.1 The county population remained sparse until the coal boom of the 1890s. The Norfolk and Western Railroad engendered the beginnings of the Wise County towns of Norton, Appalachia, and Big Stone Gap, and the subsequent exploitation of major coal seams in the region. The N&W established a line into the rich Pocahontas coalfields in Tazewell County, Virginia, about 1880. The railroad profited handsomely from transporting vast amounts of high quality coal from Pocahontas and nearby mines, and soon began laying track to the west, into Wise County.

1. Michael J. Pulice, Architectural Historian, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Roanoke Region, Kelly View School, Wise County, VA, nomination document, 2006, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Nearby Towns: Big Stone Gap Town •