Wytheville is one of a kind. In name and spirit. It’s been a stopping-off point in Virginia for more than 30 years as we’ve travelled back and forth to South Carolina.
Get some gas, fast food to go, and hit the road again. Recently, I took the opportunity to spend a few days in Wytheville to soak in its rich history and welcoming southern hospitality. Situated at the crossroads of Interstates 77 and 81, about 145 km from Greensboro, N.
C., this town of about 8,500 works diligently to showcase its roots and culture. The Thomas J.
Boyd Museum gets its namesake from the man who pushed to have the town named after George Wythe, a judge and scholar whose signature is on the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
The museum is focused on the area’s mining and communications development and includes a permanent exhibit dedicated to the polio outbreak of 1850. Wythe County was among the hardest-hit regions in the U.S.
— so much so it was called the “summer without children.” The museum displays an Emerson Respirator, also known as an iron lung, designed to breathe for incapacitated polio victims. Wythe County resident Lee Hale used one for 32 years after contracting polio.
Haller-Gibboney Rock House Museum preserves the legacy of Dr. John Haller, the town’s first physician, and some women from the Haller and Gibboney families who practiced progressive medicine and business techniques. Great Lakes to Florida Highway Museum is staged in a former Texaco gas station built in 1926.
