* * Visiting Gate City, Virginia

For the prior two days, I have been motorcycling the Crooked Road with my friend, Mike Gunther.  In doing research for my upcoming book, I have already traveled every mile of The Crooked Road on various exploratory trips, but never in one fell swoop.  To attempt to achieve some honesty with my upcoming readers, I decided that a complete trip from one end to the other was in order.

MG and I left on Monday morning and rode the eastern portion starting in Rocky Mount and spent the night in a motel in Abingdon.  We rode the western section from Abingdon to Breaks Interstate Park yesterday and then completed the trip back home.

The weather was absolutely delightful for the entire trip.  Monday was on the warm side and there was nary a cloud in the sky to be seen.  Tuesday morning started off cooler and partly cloudy but it quickly warmed up and was equally pleasant.  This is probably the peak week for the leaf change season and many trees were brilliant in color.

One of the best aspects of traveling the Crooked Road is exploring some of the smaller, largely forgotten communities throughout Southwest Virginia.  I have always bypassed one town because it does not have an official Crooked Road venue, even though the Road goes right by it.  But Mike and I decided that we owed it to ourselves to stop and get a brief tour of Gate City in Scott County.

Gate City is only about 4 miles from the Tennessee border.  It is the county seat of Scott County.  The population is about 2100 people in a county of about 23,000 people.  It is named for the gap in Clinch Mountain, called Moccasin Gap, which forms a natural gateway through which highways US 23, US 58, and US 421 all pass.  Clinch Mountain forms an impressive backdrop to the southern border of the town.

The town was established in 1815.  Its main street is Jackson Street, named after Andrew Jackson who had just established himself as a hero in the war of 1812.  The city was originally called Winfield for General Winfield Scott, another hero of the war.  Its second incarnation was Estillville, named after Benjamin Estill, a judge who established Scott County.  In its current incarnation, it was named Gate City and was incorporated in 1892.

Two things caught my attention in Gate City.  First, the downtown is about three blocks long which is approximately the same as my current city of Blacksburg which has around 40,000 people.  The second thing is that the downtown is festooned with antique lamp posts having five spherical globes each.  While not seemingly destitute but not bustling, either, Gate City's founding fathers apparently once dreamed of much greater things for their city than are evident today.

It struck me that the towns and cities that were established prior to the 1970s and have seen stagnant development since are much more interesting and unique than those that suffered through the Wal-Martization era since then.  My hometown of Christiansburg was overwhelmed by the car-based development culture and the downtown.  While becoming the recent recipient of beautification efforts, it is a mere shadow of the newer, bustling, mid-county mall world.  We will live to regret the way we have given our communities over to the automobile rather than to the pedestrians and bicyclists. 

Gate City is in a largely unvisited part of the state but it has a beautiful setting and an authenticity that makes it a worthwhile destination.