Virginia's Most Redneck Towns (Yes, They Exist)

Get The Virginia Retirement Guide ⬇️ https://virginiaretire.com Forget Williamsburg. Forget Virginia Beach. Forget the colonial reenactors and the beach umbrellas. The proudest country towns in Virginia are the ones nobody's putting on a brochure. This list comes from digging through the overlooked corners of Virginia, the Southwest Virginia coalfields, the Blue Ridge, and the New River Valley, hunting for the towns where coal heritage, mountain music, and county fair traditions are still a way of life. Not the postcard version. The real thing. Coal dust and banjo strings. Pickup trucks with mud on the fenders. What you'll find in this video: A Walmart sitting on top of a two-story parking garage, because the town blasted a new home out of a mountainside to escape the floods. A valley so stubborn that one of the richest men in America tried to buy a piece of it, and nobody would sell him a single acre. A 1935 moonshine trial that called more than 200 witnesses. And a railroad tunnel so short you could almost throw a baseball clean through it. These 10 towns won't show up on any brochure. That's exactly why they're worth the drive. 🏘️ TOWNS FEATURED (with 2020 Census populations) • Rocky Mount, Virginia — 4,903 people, in Franklin County, the "Moonshine Capital of the World" • Floyd, Virginia — 448 people, home of the Friday Night Jamboree since 1984 • Honaker, Virginia — 1,217 people, officially the Redbud Capital of the World • Tazewell, Virginia — 4,486 people, county fair dating back to 1872 • Grundy, Virginia — 875 people, rebuilt on higher ground after the April 1977 flood • Pulaski, Virginia — 8,985 people, home of Calfee Park, built in 1935 • Lebanon, Virginia — 3,159 people, county seat of Russell County farm country • Big Stone Gap, Virginia — 5,254 people, staging The Trail of the Lonesome Pine every summer since 1964 • Galax, Virginia — 6,720 people, host of the 90th Old Fiddlers' Convention in August 2026 • Appalachia, Virginia — 1,432 people, coal and railroad hub since 1890 and #1 on the published most redneck list 📌 WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER • How Franklin County earned the name "the wettest county in the world," and the 1935 trial behind the Hollywood movie Lawless • Why George Vanderbilt built the Biltmore in North Carolina after the farmers of Burke's Garden refused to sell • The Old Fiddlers' Convention, which began in 1935 as a Moose Lodge fundraiser and calls itself the oldest and largest in the world • The Bee Rock Tunnel, just 47 feet and 7 inches long, once billed by Ripley's as the shortest railroad tunnel in the world 📍 VIRGINIA COUNTRY CULTURE QUICK FACTS • The Crooked Road is Virginia's official heritage music trail, and Floyd is one of its stops • The Trail of the Lonesome Pine has been named the Official Outdoor Drama of Virginia • Buchanan County is home to Virginia's largest coal mine • In 2024, the region announced Mountain Spirit, a moonshine heritage driving trail 🚀 KEY TAKEAWAY In Virginia, "redneck" isn't an insult. It's a family tree, a work ethic, and a fiddle tune passed down for a hundred years. These 10 towns still make their own music, still know their neighbors, and still remember the coal, cattle, timber, and corn liquor that built them. The Virginia they left off the brochure was never hiding. It just never needed a brochure. — 👉 Which Virginia town surprised you the most? Drop a comment and let us know. 👉 Know someone planning a Virginia road trip? Send them this video before they hit the Blue Ridge. #Virginia #Appalachia #SmallTownVirginia