Column – Fun journey to Floyd, which stays proudly small – Smithfield Times

Anne and I are lifelong and dependable youngsters of Tidewater, however each summer time or two, we get the urge to flee the humidity for just a few days and go west, at the very least so far as the Blue Ridge. And each time we do, we search for new places, new issues to see.

This summer time, we discovered an actual gem within the city of Floyd, Va. Floyd has a inhabitants of 448 (that was the official estimate in 2024) and sits smack dab in the midst of Floyd County, inhabitants 15,658.

It was good, to begin with, to go to a county and city that also has just one stoplight. There had been two in Isle of Wight, if my reminiscence’s correct — one in Smithfield and one in Windsor — after we returned house in 1972, so the absence of at the moment’s a number of stops was a pleasing reminder of again when. 

Still, even a single stoplight, that in the midst of downtown Floyd, appears to be one too many for some longtime Floyd residents. A store proprietor informed us (she might have exaggerated it for the vacationers) that there are county residents who will drive additional miles to keep away from that one gentle.

Floyd’s not likely remoted. It’s solely about 45 miles south of Roanoke, so if you wish to get there by way of fairly good highways, simply go to Roanoke and switch left. Routes 220 and 221 are curvy however will get you there comfortably.

I like to recommend the route we took. We dropped off 460 at Burkeville, took 360 to Keysville and there picked up Route 40 west via Rocky Mount and Ferrum. It was a bit nostalgic for me, an previous Ferrum alum, however I discovered 40 is way improved from what it was within the Sixties when a number of of us piled into an previous ’52 Ford owned by a classmate to make the journey. We took additional quarts of oil that may be wanted alongside the best way, and headed from faculty alongside a really rural Route 40. Back then, it appeared that 40 made a right-angle flip at each tobacco barn, and so they had been plentiful. There are nonetheless just a few of these seen this summer time, however the freeway’s curves have been vastly improved.

Still, to get to Floyd by this route, you’ll drive one in every of Virginia’s extra attention-grabbing roads. Several miles west of Ferrum College, you make a tough proper flip onto Shooting Creek Road, which faithfully follows Shooting Creek, full with a switchback curve, up the aspect of a mountain, and throughout the Blue Ridge Parkway the place you permit it for the final leg into Floyd.

(Back once I was in class, native lore — plausible however not documented — famously informed of a hog truck driver attempting to navigate Shooting Creek downhill when his brakes failed. No point out was fabricated from the motive force’s destiny, but it surely was mentioned that mountain people feasted on pork for fairly some time after that.)

But again to Floyd. The route we took takes you into the city by way of a beautiful bottomland highway. It’s an ideal method in. 

What we realized over the subsequent 24 hours was that the county and apparently the entire valley space north and west of there have develop into one thing of a haven for artists searching for their muse in Virginia’s pastoral highlands. And retailers in Floyd are delighted to share these artists’ works with guests. A roughly two-block part of the tiny downtown is filled with outlets that provide, for probably the most half, high-quality jewellery, woodcrafts, leather-based and, in just a few cases, extraordinary artworks.

However, the city primarily prides itself as a middle for varied types of nation music, from Nashville sounds to bluegrass and conventional mountain music. It’s not Galax, but it surely’s no slouch both. The Floyd Country Store hosts a rustic band each Thursday evening, and several other dozen diehard nation dancers present as much as two-step, line dance or clog their method via the night. Visitors are welcome to affix in, and it’s free.

There’s additionally a park venue that hosts a summer-long collection of concert events, a lot as Smithfield does, however largely dedicated to nation, bluegrass and mountain music performers, as would appear acceptable.

I’d been to Floyd one different time in my life. A fellow scholar at Ferrum who lived on a small farm close to the city invited me to accompany him house on the weekend that Floyd was presenting its annual county honest. That would have been within the fall of 1964, and county gala’s again then had been fairly primary, nothing like Isle of Wight’s annual extravaganza at the moment. There had been the same old shows of native canned items, quilts and livestock, however my pal shortly guided us previous all that to the aspect exhibits, the place our ceremony of passage took us right into a hoochie coochie present. 

Neither the honest nor the present had been all that spectacular, however our go to this time was. Smithfield by no means was Floyd. There has at all times been a top quality of life right here that’s not essentially higher, however is kind of completely different from that which you’ll be able to nonetheless discover when you’ve crossed the Blue Ridge. But that mentioned, there’s one thing terribly refreshing about visiting a group that also has solely 40 individuals per sq. mile quite than practically 4 instances that many which can be more and more crammed into the northeastern nook of our house county. 

Floyd is barely 260 miles from right here, however the time it takes you again to is way extra distant than that.

John Edwards is writer emeritus of The Smithfield Times. His electronic mail handle is [email protected].