Qualla: Alleghany County, Virginia

Alleghany County, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit jpmueller99 from Shenandoah Valley of VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. When you cross into Alleghany County from the east, the ridges start telling you where you are. The Allegheny Mountains rise along the western edge of the county and give it both its name and its limits. Beyond that line is West Virginia. Below the ridges, the Cowpasture River drops down from the north and the Jackson River winds south, and where they meet, just past the county line near a place called Iron Gate, they become the James River. That confluence is essentially the headwaters of one of the great American rivers - and almost nobody driving by notices. Alleghany is the northernmost county of the Roanoke Region. As of the 2020 census, 15,223 people lived here. Most of them work, in one way or another, around the paper mill in Covington.

Image: jpmueller99 from Shenandoah Valley of VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Alleghany County, Virginia: From Hemp to Hardwood

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit jpmueller99 from Shenandoah Valley of VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. Alleghany County was established by an act of the Virginia General Assembly on January 5, 1822, from parts of Bath County, Botetourt County, and Monroe County - the last of which is now in West Virginia. When the county was founded, the principal export was hemp, grown for rope p...

Image: jpmueller99 from Shenandoah Valley of VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Alleghany County, Virginia: The Towns That Almost Were Cities

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit jpmueller99 from Shenandoah Valley of VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. Alleghany County has a complicated relationship with the towns inside it. The county seat is Covington - but Covington is an independent city under the Virginia constitution and therefore not technically part of the county. Clifton Forge has a stranger history still. It was once ...

Image: jpmueller99 from Shenandoah Valley of VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Alleghany County, Virginia: Amtrak's Cardinal Calls

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SneakinDeacon, CC BY 2.0. Three days a week, in each direction, the Amtrak Cardinal pulls into Clifton Forge - one of the more romantic small-town stops on the long passenger run between Chicago and New York. The Cardinal route winds through the New River Gorge and the Allegheny highlands; Clifton Forge s...

Image: SneakinDeacon | CC BY 2.0

Alleghany County, Virginia: Greater Appalachia

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jarek Tuszyński, CC BY-SA 3.0. Colin Woodard, in his book American Nations, places Alleghany squarely within what he calls Greater Appalachia - the cultural region defined by Scots-Irish settlement, hard mountain agriculture, and a deep skepticism of distant authority. The county lives that identity. Political...

Image: Jarek Tuszyński | CC BY-SA 3.0