Fragments From Floyd

There is one traffic light in Floyd County. It hangs over the intersection of Route 8 and Hiway 221 in "downtown" Floyd, the county seat. You can see it here just out the window of Farmers Supply. Since the traffic light is pretty much the center of town, I suppose you could say that you are looking here at the very beginning of the Crooked Road--Virginia's Heritage Music Trail. The other end of the roughly 250 crooked-mile cultural tour is at the Ralph Stanley Museum in Clintwood in far western Virginia near the West Virginia border.

The project came to completion last week when our governor and a host of musical and other dignitaries celebrated the passage of the bill that makes the Trail official. Expectations are high for tourist dollars, increased cultural exploration of southwestern Virginia, and the pressures and woes that tend to follow crowds and their money into small, quiet communities. I think it will constitute a healthy form of tourism and be good for our end of the state. This from the Crooked Road "About" page:

In January 2002 an idea germinated to develop a heritage music trail in the Appalachian region of Southwestern Virginia. Since that time a consortium of local governments and private organizations have been at work to realize this concept as an economic development program for an area of the state encompassing eight counties, three cities and nine towns. There are two basic project objectives: within three years from the trail’s inception, the Appalachian region of Southwestern Virginia will be nationally recognized as a major heritage tourism destination; within four years, revenues from tourism in the Appalachian region of Southwestern Virginia will triple. Although the trail is focused on the uniqueness and vitality of this region’s heritage music, it will also include outdoor recreation, museums, crafts, and historic/cultural programs.

Here's the map. Y'all come on down. And now I see that with the late addition of Ferrum's Blue Ridge Institute, perhaps Floyd is no longer considered the eastern beginning of the trail. Don't matter. We still think our traffic light is pretty darned important.