Lunch hour drive around the small Blue Ridge Mountain town of Wytheville, Virginia.
Filmed: May 2020
Wytheville by the Numbers (2010 Census):
Town Population: 8,211
City Area: 15.48 sq mi
Metro Population: 29,119
From Wikipedia:
Wytheville is a town in, and the county seat of, Wythe County, in western Virginia, United States. It is named after George Wythe, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and mentor to Thomas Jefferson. Wytheville's population was 8,211 at the 2010 census. Interstate Highways 77 and 81 were constructed to intersect at the town, long a crossroads for travelers.
During the American Civil War, Wytheville had a strategic importance. It was attacked in 1863 (Toland's Raid) and 1865 (Stoneman's 1865 Raid). The town is the birthplace of Edith Bolling Wilson, second wife of President Woodrow Wilson.
Wythe County was created in 1789 and named for George Wythe, the "father of American Jurisprudence" and signer of the Declaration of Independence. In May 1790, Chris Simmerman donated 90 acres, along with John Davis's 10 acres, to establish a town and county seat. Robert Adams completed a town survey in November of that year, dividing the area into half-acre lots. The town did not have an official name yet, but was generally known as Wythe Court House.
Two years later, in October 1792, the town was officially named Evansham, for prominent local citizen Jesse Evans. After a disastrous fire in March 1839, the town was renamed Wytheville. At that time, it was home to about 500 residents.
After the Reconstruction era, the majority-white community joined the rest of the state in reasserting white supremacy and Jim Crow rules, which lasted long into the 20th century. In 1926 the last lynching in Virginia took place here, when Raymond Bird, an African-American man, was taken from jail by a large group of white men, after being arrested for having sex with a white woman. He was shot, dragged miles behind a truck, and his dead body hanged from a tree on a county road. He had first been accused of raping Minnie Grubb, daughter of his employer, but she insisted their relationship was consensual and bore his daughter. The community refused to tolerate this and killed him three weeks later. The event provoked outrage and national coverage by newspapers.
Bird's death was a catalyst for Virginia's passing an anti-lynching law in 1928, largely because of a campaign led by Louis I. Jaffé, editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. It was supported by Governor Harry Flood Byrd Sr., who linked the bill to his efforts to attract new businesses to the state.