Craigsville, Virginia, population 992, has no stop lights, one grocery store, two gas stations, three restaurants and nine churches. For years it counted on a marble quarry and then a cement plant to keep the economy going. They’re gone now, and most of the 222 jobs at the Augusta Correctional Center have also disappeared, but Craigsville is doing surprisingly well.
Mayor Richard Fox is on the phone with his banker – getting ready to pay off a sizable loan the town took out to fix its sewer and water system, an investment it made to supply the prison.
“It was written in the contract in ’85 that if the prison ever left, the sewer plant comes back to the town, but we also get the indebtedness for it,” he explains.
But now the state has agreed to pay-off town loans, and residents who worked at the prison were given other jobs with the Department of Corrections, took early retirement or severance pay of up to nine months.
“Have a good one! (register sound)”
Business is still brisk at the Dollar General, but restaurants like the deli in Craigsville’s IGA report fewer customers. Caroline Worley figures business is off by about 40%, but she plans to keep on cooking.
“We have fried chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans, gravy, spicy wings, regular wings, and they do a special every day – like tomorrow will be meatloaf," she says.
Worley figures summer will bring more customers – people passing through on their way to Goshen Pass to fish or swim in the Cowpasture River, to stay at the Homestead or camp at Lake Moomaw.
The town also has a fair number of people who collect pensions and social security, and some of them have started small businesses – selling to the wider world online.
Lisa Landrum retired from banking and opened Nana’s Rustic Den. It’s a resale shop that hosts auctions on Facebook twice a week:
“Hey, Candy. Hi, Miss Vicky. Hey, Crystal."
After greeting participants by name, Landrum begins the auction of antiques, clothing and collectibles.
“This is a Pioneer Woman quilt, starting off at $22.”
The store, on Craigsville’s main street, also offers tanning beds, a beauty salon, candy apples, snow cones and fresh squeezed lemonade.
Sarah Downing has also discovered a customer base beyond Craigsville for Sassy Sarah’s Creations. She makes custom gifts, garden signs, tumblers, shirts and hats, selling them on Facebook and at craft shows. That leaves time to home school her son Tyler who’s part of the family business.
“I’ve got Tyler’s Creations," the rising fourth grader explains. "I make little clothes pins of scarecrows and snowmen.”
The town did have to make some cuts to its million-dollar budget, but most local services— fire and rescue, the sheriff, schools and the library— are funded by the county.
Craigsville residents hope the state will find a buyer for the prison, and Mayor Fox is hoping a new employer or two might decide to locate here.
“But I don’t want it to grow quickly like some of the other ones have," he adds. "There’s a lot of crime, a lot of problems. We don’t need that.”
Meanwhile, volunteers are doing what they can to keep local residents and to attract newcomers. Janice Oakley is a member of the planning commission and the town’s librarian.
“We did a town-wide movie night. We’ve done a farmers’ market. We do a big bash at Christmas time where we make sure every kid has a gift. They come and they do crafts. They do things with their families. We have food, and it’s just a really fun time.”
And locals recently collected recipes from hundreds of homemakers to compile and publish the Craigsville Community cookbook, featuring familiar American comfort foods and local specialties – catfish soup, possum, venison pie, deer jerky and 74 different desserts.
