The Morgantowner: Buchanan County, Virginia

I always thought I had moved to Appalachia when Joe and I came to Morgantown in 2012. Now I know better. The main road through Buchanan County, Virginia is U.S. 460 between Bluefield, West Virginia and Pikevile, Kentucky. The road is four lanes and parallels Lavisa Fork River southeast of Grundy. In town, 460 has been relocated to the side of a blasted-out mountain, as the former road through downtown flooded one time too many. Buchanan County has lost more than a third of its population since the 1980 census.

Coal is still king here. Monstrous-looking coal plants line 460 in the eastern part of the county, and giant trucks carrying unidentifiable equipment crowd the roads. People live in the stream beds. The rest of the terrain is steep.

Many of the county's schools have closed. One middle school is now a law school run by the state, and there is a pharmacy school in an office park. The paper today had an article about the opening of a four-year optometry school.

Grundy is the seat of Buchanan County. There is a tiny Main Street, protected by flood walls and even a gate to close off the access to it from relocated US 460 and State Road 83. which runs across the county perpendicular to 460. Both roads are designated east-west, although 460 is more north-south in this county. Across from old downtown is a new two-story Wal-Mart, which backs on a blasted-out mountainside. There are other stores in that complex.

Vansant is a Census-Defined Place (CDP), the suburb just south of Grundy. It has the fast-food places and the big grocery store. From Grundy, it is less than twenty miles to Pike County, Kentucky and Mercer County, West Virginia.

People here were friendly, nodding "hello" to me even though I don't know them. Their accent is not like in West Virginia. They use a long "E" for short "I, pronouncing "his" like "he's." There is a drawl to all this. Despite the drop in population, there are 23,000 or so people, more than in many West Virginia counties. Fancy houses line 83 east of Grundy.

I had dinner last night at a pizza and subs place next to the motel, lunch today in the big grocery store in Vansant at the salad bar, which was fully half desserts. I got a fried chicken breast and a biscuit to complement my healthy salad just to spite my recently unclogged arteries. There was an eating area in the store, and people were socializing. Even the people passing through all seemed to know someone standing around chatting.

There is a Grundy Plaza in Vansant. This may be the former warehouse that Wikipedia says the downtown Grundy stores moved to after the 1977 flood. I dined at the Chinese buffet. Young men were eating there in groups, more clean-cut than the men I saw during the day. Perhaps they were law students, whose semester starts next week. The food at the buffet was bad - everything fried, no plain white rice. The waitress was friendly, touching my arm several times.

I stayed at the Comfort Inn in Grundy on Business 460, which I think was the original route before the flooding. The hotel is across from the river, and while that side of the street is empty, there may have been shops there at one time. The new 460 was above us, cut into the mountain.

The hotel was crowded. I booked the last single king-bed room Sunday for Tuesday. I thought maybe it was the family of law school students, but it appeared to be working people, overwhelmingly men, miners, railroad people (Norfolk and Southern Railroad has a huge yard north of Grundy) and people in trucks from utility companies. The hotel is more luxurious than most Comfort Inns.

When I checked in, I asked the clerk where to go,and he said the main tourist attraction was Breaks Interstate Park, 20 miles from Grundy on the Kentucky border. The main part of the park is in Virginia, but probably not in this county. I may have cheated on my system, going into the next countybut I am unrepentant. The motel, cabins, visitors center and beach were closed for the winter.

People had said it wouldn't be warmer than Morgantown. January in Grundy is usually one degree warmer than Morgantown, and three degrees warmer in the afternoon. It was 21 F. this morning and 42 F. in the afternoon with bright southern sunshine. That's why I saved the park for afternoon.

I asked the hotel breakfast lady why the screen on the television said schools were opening late in many surrounding counties. She, like other people around here didn't understand what I said. Maybe it's my accent. She said it's because of the icy roads when it's cold. Morgantown schools don't open late for 20 degree weather. It has to be 0 in the morning. I did note in the morning that it was sunny in many places, but in the shadow of the mountains, dark and cold. There was snow throughout the area on the ground in the places that are always shady.

The congressional district here covers most counties in southwest Virginia. I think more people live in fifteen square mile Alexandria, near Washington, D.C., than in eight counties of southwest Virginia. Today's paper out of Tazewell, the next county southeast of here, says that a retired postal worker is challenging the local Republican congressman as a "Bernie Sanders Democrat." I've said that about my state delegate candidacy.

I don't think people here are as conservative as I expected. They seem to be friendly, hard-working people, many of them in unions, religious, judging by the number of churches I saw today, and taking active measures to save their area from oblivion. In addition to many active coal mines, I saw abandoned mine equipment and what looked to me like reclaimed mining land- the only places I saw that were flat and treeless.

It's a beautiful place, Buchanan County, and I wish the people luck and blessings in adapting to change here.

Here are the pictures.