Qualla: Patrick County, Virginia

Patrick County, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr from now in Binghamton, NY, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bob Childress moved a mountain — not the geological one but the one inside the hearts of Blue Ridge people who had given up on each other. Born in Patrick County in 1890, the moonshining son of a moonshining father became a Presbyterian minister and built six rock churches across Patrick, Carroll, and Floyd counties from local stone, the way you'd build a barn — to last. The book that told his story, Richard C. Davids' 1970 The Man Who Moved a Mountain, became the kind of regional bible that Blue Ridge families pass down in copies missing their dust jackets. Patrick County has produced larger reputations than Childress's — J.E.B. Stuart was born here, R.J. Reynolds was born here — but few of them have lasted as well in the local memory.

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Image: Doug Kerr from now in Binghamton, NY | CC BY-SA 2.0

Patrick County, Virginia: A County Named for an Orator

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MarmadukePercy, CC BY-SA 3.0. Patrick County was carved out of Henry County in 1791. Henry, in turn, had been named in 1777 for Patrick Henry — "give me liberty" — and when the southwest portion of Henry got too big to govern from one courthouse, the legislature divided it and gave each half one of his names....

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Image: MarmadukePercy | CC BY-SA 3.0

Patrick County, Virginia: The Stuart Born on Laurel Hill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Virginia Department of Education, CC BY 2.0. On February 6, 1833, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart gave birth to her seventh child at Laurel Hill Farm. They named him James Ewell Brown Stuart, and history remembers him as J.E.B. He grew up here, riding the hills, learning to handle horses on land his family had farmed since...

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Image: Virginia Department of Education | CC BY 2.0

Patrick County, Virginia: Mabry Mill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit US National Park Service, Public domain. If you have seen a photograph of a Blue Ridge mountain mill — with its weathered wooden flume, the water wheel turning lazily beside a millpond reflecting the sky — you have probably seen Mabry Mill. It sits at milepost 176 on the Blue Ridge Parkway just over the Patrick County l...

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Image: US National Park Service | Public domain

Patrick County, Virginia: The Wood Brothers and the Speed Mountain

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0. Patrick County is the home of Wood Brothers Racing, the oldest active team in NASCAR Cup history, founded in 1950 by Glen Wood — a Stuart, Virginia, native who is in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The Wood Brothers' shop is in Stuart. So was the heartbreak. On October 24, 2004, a corpo...

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Image: Joe Ravi | CC BY-SA 3.0

Patrick County, Virginia: Covered Bridges and Fairy Stones

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joverby, CC BY-SA 4.0. Patrick County has long been one of the great tourist destinations of Virginia. The Blue Ridge Parkway forms the county's western border. Fairy Stone State Park, named for the cross-shaped staurolite crystals you can still pick up from the ground there, sits in the county's north...

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Image: Joverby | CC BY-SA 4.0