Last year, every house that went on the market in Pennington Gap sold. Here’s why.
Joan Vannorsdall
Tucked into the far southwest corner of Virginia, Pennington Gap is the largest town in Lee County, and one worth visiting and celebrating.
The 7 a.m. WSWV Monday Morning Show is a don’t-miss for Lee County, Virginia, residents. Pennington Gap Town Manager Keith Harless, Lee Theatre Manager Tony Lawson and former station owner Rob Wright will fill you in on the local news and views—and they have lots of fun in the process. “We talk about what’s going on in the community, upcoming events, what’s happening at the Theatre. We do the show to bring the community together—we want people to feel that this is their town,” Harless says.
Building community—bringing people together—is central to the creative push forward in Pennington Gap. They do it in places like the expansive Leeman Field Park and the town-owned Lee Theatre. They do it downtown, with summer music and beach parties…and in the surrounding mountains, on the Stone Mountain ATV Trail.
In Pennington Gap, Virginia—population 2,100—they’re doing it with strong and well-connected leaders who aren’t afraid to think outside the box and work collaboratively.
The best way to start learning a town is to walk its streets. Pennington Gap’s main thoroughfare is Morgan Avenue (U.S. 421), which runs through its downtown and is lined with high-steepled churches, law and accounting offices, a few restaurants, a pharmacy and an antique/collectible shop and auction house happily named The Dusty Monkey.
Across the street, the marquee of the restored Lee Theatre announces the upcoming Block Party and free movie. How, I wonder, does a town this small and far away draw enough people fill a 500-seat theatre? I’d heard rumors that they’d had some big names perform there. The Marshall Tucker Band in Pennington Gap?
In the windows of empty storefronts, colorful narrative paintings done by local art students tell whimsical stories of trolls and books and curious minds. A long hopscotch court on the sidewalk announces I am Powerful. Brave. Curious. Smart. Loved. Brilliant. Worth it. High-flying banners and blooming planters line both sides of Morgan Avenue.
It’s a lovely place to be on a Sunday afternoon in the mountains.
It’s abundantly clear that there’s real energy in Pennington Gap, and I have a lot of questions lined up for Town Manager Keith Harless when he finishes his Monday Radio Show.
Joan Vannorsdall
The office out of which Harless works says it all. His work table is filled with project summaries, budgets, schematic drawings and blueprints. The Pennington Gap native came home after college to be part of his father’s construction business, and Harless brings a lot of structural knowledge and hands-on skill to the restoration of his town.
Harless was a member of Town Council for 17 years before becoming town manager in 2015, and in both positions he’s seen the inevitable ups and downs of small mountain town life. Formed by an 1890 extension line of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Pennington became a “short cut” into eastern Kentucky and was for decades dominated by coal and tobacco farming. When both industries and rail traffic declined, Pennington had some hard choices to make.
It looks like they chose well. In 2005, they began a Downtown Revitalization project with the help of Roanoke’s Hill Studio consultants and grantwriters. They connected with the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Government’s Community Change Collaborative in 2017, resulting in a series of community discussions that put downtown investment in motion.
And in 2013, the town raised money to purchase the Lee Theatre—now one of the few theatres in Virginia municipally owned. They break even, Harless says. “The theatre is our center. It’s been a really important part of bringing people together.”
The premier show in the reopened theatre was aptly named “Lee-Haw,” a “Hee Haw” takeoff that starred local doctors, lawyers…even the sheriff. It was, not surprisingly, a sellout.
Theatre manager Tony Lawson is “a local boy,” who played in a band himself and knows how to schedule and book performances. Lawson shows me the dressing rooms in the 500-seat theatre, the walls covered with messages from performers who’d played at the Lee. It’s a beautiful reminder of what a small-town theatre can bring to its people, and with a reasonably priced event center adjoining the theatre lobby, it’s poised to bring people downtown in droves.
Harless is well aware of the economic value of the theatre in his town. “If you go stand on the streets of little Pennington Gap when the theatre lets out, that’s a lot of people on Main Street! The Lee brings people here.”
(And yes, the Marshall Tucker Band did perform at the Lee during the 2021 Lee County Tobacco Festival. This year it’s country star Julie Roberts—no doubt it’ll be another sellout.)
Directly across the street from the Lee Theatre is the Bailey-Robbins building, which is being stabilized and restored to house a bakery/coffee shop and a radio station (the result of $850,000 State Industrial Revitalization grant funding). And in the planning is an innovative Center for the Trades facility, combining hands-on trade skills training and business operation support.
The town also owns Leeman Field RV Park and Campground, and has a full-time parks and recreation director overseeing an amazing array of year-round events. In addition to the start of the 34-mile Stone Mountain ATV Trail, Leeman Field is home to a greenway walking trail along the north fork of the Powell River, a swimming pool, the century-old Lee County Fairgrounds, an 18-hole disc golf course, horse stables and arena, children’s playground, sports fields, volleyball and tennis courts and countless seasonal events.
(Trivia fact: Leeman Field was once recognized as the world’s largest enclosed baseball field—15 acres—and hosted Appalachian League play.)
Pennington Gap is a beautiful and wholly original comeback town grounded in community spirit and forward-thinking leadership. It’s a town worth seeing and celebrating.
Visit the AAACC
Pennington Gap is home to the Appalachian African American Cultural Center, cofounded in 1987 by Ron Carson and his late wife, Jill, and housed in the restored one-room schoolhouse Ron attended during the Jim Crow era. The center contains oral history collections, photographs and displays collected over the past 35 years. It’s a labor of love—and another example of Pennington’s forward thinking. By appointment only: info@aaaculturalcenter.org
The story above first appeared in our November / December 2023 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!