-[Narrator] Nestled in the heart of Appalachia, the University of Virginia's College at Wise is where students experience unique regional culture and the great outdoors.

UVA Wise, empowering students to learn and lead in their communities and the world.

♪ ♪ -[Josh Deel's voice] It's easy to get jaded, to forget the wonder in the places we call home.

It's easy to forget the beauty of the familiar, to get restless, to believe that meaning only lives somewhere else.

We chase novelty, convinced the grass out there is greener.

I've seen it again and again while filming this show.

I've spent years chasing stories in other people's towns, watching locals rediscover what they thought they knew.

The diner they stopped noticing, the view they no longer look up to see, and then being genuinely shocked when I show them something right under their noses.

Something they'd written off, ignored, or just taken for granted.

[♪ ♪ ♪] Folks will overlook their own backyard for someone else's.

People will fly halfway across the country chasing someone else's postcard version of life when the real stuff, the raw, unpolished stories, are sitting in their own backyard.

So this time, on this episode, I turn the lens on myself.

What have I missed in my own backyard?

What stories hide in the cracks of places like Wythe County, Virginia?

- That's a different song.

[folk guitar chords playing] -When you're in Wytheville, you kinda feel like you're back in time, you know.

-The community is so welcoming.

-Wytheville is this quiet, peaceful space that in the background has, it's like this vision, like, of loveliness that is just full of magic and light.

-[Josh's voice] Maybe there's more here than meets the eye.

Maybe it's time to find out.

They say the place you're from shapes you.

Maybe it defines you.

I've always thought you can't really understand yourself until you understand where you come from.

I'm Josh with PBS Appalachia.

In this series, I'm going from town to town, exploring the places people still call home, their hometowns.

From Appalachia to the rest of the country, I've found we share more than we think.

But it's the details, the food, the voices, the pride and traditions, that make us different.

This isn't a story told from New York or LA.

It comes with roots embedded in Southwest Virginia, an often overlooked, misunderstood corner of the map.

That perspective matters because the character of America doesn't just live in its big cities.

It's the small towns, the back roads, the kitchens, and the bars where people gather.

That's the lens I bring to this journey because the character of America isn't written in headlines.

It's lived in neighborhoods, on porches, at kitchen tables.

And this season, we're pushing past borders into communities far from here, into new towns, new kitchens, new homes.

Searching for what home means here and everywhere.

Art says a lot about how a place sees itself, what it values, what it remembers.

In Wythe County, that's art, folk art, fine art, theatrical art.

Creativity isn't imported, it's forged here.

From the same soil and struggle as the people who live on it.

Jen Otey and her collective, Forge Appalachia, are proof that art isn't just decoration here.

It's identity.

It's survival.

-So Forge Appalachia, we started about four years ago.

A friend of ours, Jeff Goodson, who's a woodworker, approached all of us.

There were nine of us in total, including him, with an idea about starting a nonprofit that would provide creative services and events and workshops to anybody in our community that wanted to take them, regardless of the cost.

We all, I think in our own ways, had been kind of thinking about how can we do this, how can we help our community, and we all jumped in wholeheartedly to be a part of that.

Art is a right, not a privilege, in our opinion.

We feel like everybody deserves to be able to create, everybody deserves to experience what that process is like.

-[George Bailey] You know, I started off as an actor and stayed an actor for years, but I went to school at Radford.

-[Josh] At Radford, o kay.

-And so that's what brought me down this way.

As a matter of fact, somebody was like, I had a friend who worked here... -[Josh] Yeah.

- ...and they were like, we had to do a report, a paper, you know, a project, and so they were like, "Let's do it on the Wohlfahrt Haus".

So I said, all right.

And I came down here and did all the research, did all the stuff.

And I was like, “This place will be closed in five years.” That was like my final assessment in the project.

And little did I know that the woman who built it was willing to funnel all of her life into it.

And that's the part that I missed on, you know what I mean?

-Okay.

You don't realize people, like a person's willingness and desire... -Yeah.

- ...in that, you know.

-Like a passion project, like just how much they're willing to-- -She just gave it all.

- --to give.

-Peggy Sutphin, who, she's passed away, she sat down.

She loved to go to New York and watch shows.

She sat down at the log house, which is downtown, and she drew on a napkin all the stuff that she-- her whole plan to have this theater.

And so they kind of went in and she built it from the ground up.

It's kind of crazy.

And then she ran it until she passed away.

-She's the one you were writing your paper about?

-Yep.

-[Josh] Essentially?

-Yep.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

-[Josh] Okay.

-After doing that project in the fall of 2000, I came and auditioned for Oklahoma, and that was my first gig here.

-[Josh] First gig?

-[George] Yeah.

-[Josh] I might have seen you in that.

I've seen Oklahoma here.

-Yeah, I was, uh... I was the mean burly bad guy.

I was Judd Fry and I threw people around and growled [imitates growling] and so.

-With the folk art, I feel like it lends itself to the roots of where we all come from.

And for me, you know, half of my family, I feel like, was very much involved in heritage foods and the making of quilts and different things.

The other half was, I would consider, fine art.

And so I was often steered more toward the fine art thing as a kid.

And so for me, it's like finding my way back to center, finding my way back to my roots.

I feel like what we're doing with the folk art, you know, with basketry and broom making and food preservation, it is helping people to reconnect with where we come from.

The idea of providing that little bit of beauty while you're having a cup of coffee or, you know, carrying something to work in a basket rather than a backpack.

Rural America lends itself to the kinds of art that we do.

But at the end of the day, I feel like here in Appalachia, it just is who we are.

You know, we make things, we grew up making things as a means of survival.

But those things that we made, we made them to enjoy at the same time because there's not a lot, there's no extra time and money to put into -- putting beautiful things up on the wall and just leaving them there, you know.

You have to put that effort into the things that are gonna keep you and your family fed and alive and warm and safe.

-[Josh's voice] Forge Appalachia reminds us that in these mountains, beauty has always lived side by side with purpose.

A quilt warms a bed, a handmade piece of furniture holds a family, and a carving tells a story.

Art is woven into everyday life, and yet too often it's taken for granted.

Just down the road in Wythe County, in the little town of Rural Retreat, Jim Lloyd has spent a lifetime wrestling with that very idea.

The musician, teacher, and storyteller, Jim knows better than most how hard it is for artists to value their own work and to help others see its worth.

-I recently talked to an orchestra leader, of all places, from Constantinople.

-Okay.

-Istanbul.

One of those two.

But he told me it's the same across the board.

I found it to be true since I talked to him.

Every musician: no one sees my worth, I don't know why I do this.

[laughs] They're all like that.

Any from class school to bluegrass.

-Creatives in general.

-Yeah.

Well, yeah.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

-A bit tormented.

-Right.

This town, when I got here, I came here forty years ago and it was on the death throes.

And I took over for the barber.

It had been World War II generation.

And then stuff started happening.

We got a grocery store.

We built up and built up.

Now we're about to lose the grocery store.

We've lost a bunch of businesses this year, and things ain't looking too hot.

-Yeah, it's kind of ebb and flow, and consolidation isn't the right word, but in some of these, like, rural places, I feel like whatever the bigger town is, a lot of the outline little communities seem to not-- not that they get absorbed or overshadowed, but, you know, it's not 60 or 70 years ago where maybe there was coal or this or-- -[Jim Lloyd] Oh yeah.

-[Josh] Things change, right?

People leave, and-- -Main Street is me.

That's it.

And we have the depot down here, and we've tried having some festivals.

Doctor Pepper was here.

-[Josh] Yeah.

-[Jim] We don't know that he invented the drink, but we have his body.

So we have-- -[Josh] He's buried out here?

-[Jim] He is.

-When I think of Wytheville or this area, I just think of truck stops.

I think of a place that you just kind of pass through.

-[Jim] That hurts.

-[Josh] No, I'm just saying because I'd never lived in Wytheville.

But we traveled a lot growing up, and so when I think of the area, that and the big pencil over on Main Street, you know?

So I really, I really-- coming into this episode, this has kinda struck me and kinda humbled me too because the more we travel, the more I find that people are eager to go somewhere else to look in someone else's backyard.

-Always.

Always.

-Because we always think the grass is greener.

-Always.

I've traveled through all of Appalachian, up and down.

Man, we could have Willie Nelson come in there-- I'm just picking a name-- we could have Willie Nelson come in and do a concert.

People here wouldn't go see it because it's here.

But the Rural Retreat's a really jewel of a little town.

I mean, we're a really good kept secret.

I always think there's a way to combat negative stuff.

I always think there's a way around this wall.

There's got to be a way to change somebody's opinion for the better.

-I grew up here.

My dad is from here, born and raised.

His parents before him.

My mom's from Pulaski County, so neighboring county.

And so, yeah, I grew up here.

I did leave for a long time.

-[Josh] Oh, you did?

-I did.

I moved to Alaska for ten years.

-[Josh] Oh, yeah.

-And it was real interesting.

I really feel like I connected with, like, food preservation even more there.

Like, I had grown up with that my whole young life and kind of took it for granted.

But then living there and having to, like, survive winters, I learned a lot from people up there.

So when I decided to come home, I felt more connected when I moved back than I probably was before I left, which was really amazing.

And I feel like Alaska kind of gave a lot of that to me.

You know, the indigenous arts up there, that culture of art and making, I feel like, is very similar to the culture of art and making in Appalachia.

When I came back, I also saw the need to not just continue the work I was doing with my art, but to work with other artists and urge them to see the value in what they are doing.

-You know, it's amazing how many people still say that they never knew what we were or that we were here, that are local.

But I think overall, I think it's been super important to the community.

We have... I used to do children's camps and then we have expanded that now.

And now the theater does those camps for kids.

-Like for working with public schools?

-Yeah, we do shows in schools or let the schools come here and watch them.

And then we get the kids every summer and now they get together at the Millwald, and we do it in conjunction with the Millwald downtown.

And it's a children's program where the kids go for a week, learn all they can about acting, stage combat, all that stuff.

And then we roll the dice and put up a show that weekend.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

-With the kids?

-Yep.

-Oh, wow.

Okay.

-So it's kind of crazy and it's also awesome.

-Sure.

-Yeah.

-You know, there's a lot of poverty here, just like all over rural Appalachia.

And sometimes I feel like there are people left out.

And so that's part of why we're doing what we're doing, is to try to include those people that may not feel like they have a voice or the right to participate in certain things.

-[Josh's voice] Conversations like I've had here touch on something deeper than circumstance.

Poverty doesn't just shape the present, but it shapes who gets remembered and who gets overlooked.

History has a way of lingering even when the voices fade.

[♪ ♪ ♪] Every place carries its past, some louder than others.

Here in Wythe County, you don't have to look far to feel history pressing up through the ground.

It was here that men signed the Fincastle Resolutions, one of the first open pledges to stand with the Continental Congress and defy British rule.

That spirit of defiance, of conviction, still runs through this place in its art, its people, its stories.

[♪ ♪ ♪] [♪ ♪ ♪] - [Michael Gillman] I think if your ancestors were here for a long time, you kind of have a connection to the land and it feels like home.

I mean, I grew up with, you know, around all of my grandparents and they'd all been here for generations, and they just kind of took it all in and stayed here, and it just kind of wore off on me, and I have, I don't have a desire to leave.

My first ancestor arrived in 1760.

- [Josh] Really?

-[Michael] All of my lines except for two were here by 1810.

-[Josh] Okay.

So you have a pretty deep connection to the place.

-[Michael] Very deep.

-Yeah.

Did you ever move away, or...?

-Nope.

-No.

-Nope.

-You had any desire to?

-No.

I'm a homebody.

-[Josh] Really?

Okay.

-I'm a hermit.

I like the mountains.

I stay here.

You know, my wife's from Delaware.

She loves to travel but-- -[Josh] Yeah.

-Not me.

-You really got to look back about the French and Indian War when people started settling in the area.

Alexander Mack, which is now Max Meadows.

The Sayers property, which eventually became Fort Chiswell... -Okay.

- ...all that before the French and Indian War.

And then we get into the '17, late 1750s, and Colonel John Chiswell of Williamsburg was out here, and the story goes he was running from some Native Americans and dove into a cave and he found lead.

I think he was out here snooping, but either way, so he did find lead mines here, and that's really what kind of spurred the settlement, was having that resource because you needed the lead for shot so you could hunt and support your family that way.

-[Josh] Isn't there a shot tower?

-[Michael] It is.

-[Josh] Nearby?

-[Michael] Yeah, there's a shot tower over at Poplar Camp.

And that's actually where my first ancestor was actually the first superintendent of the lead mines.

-[Josh] Really?

-And he arrived here in 1760 on request from John Chiswell.

So him and his family moved over here from Bristol, England, and settled what's Poplar Camp.

And so I think the lead mines and having that resource here, that kind of spurred some settlement.

Of course, everybody was looking for land, so the more Western you went, the land was available.

We've always had agriculture.

The mining industry was in Wythe County for about 227 years.

-Primarily lead, that was they were...?

-Carbide was later zinc.

-Okay.

-Lead was what kicked it off.

The town itself, you know, your normal businesses, lawyer stores, hotels, and it's always been like that.

By 1820, I don't think there was less than six taverns and inns on Main Street.

-[Josh] How does Austinville tie into local history here?

-Austinville is because of the lead mines.

-[Josh] It is, okay.

-Yeah.

And that's... Actually, when we talk about the Civil War, we got to go back to the Revolutionary War, because what some people don't know about this area is there was actually three skirmishes over lead during the Revolution here.

-[Josh] Oh really?

-[Michael] Between Patriot militia and Loyalist militia.

So people who stayed loyal to Great Britain, they wanted to capture the lead mines and hand it over to the King of England.

-[Josh] Yeah, obviously.

Yeah.

-Because the lead mines were supplying pretty much the majority of all lead for the continental forces and Virginia troops.

And so you've always, with these kind of wars, you've always had that resource war out here is what I call it, because it wasn't really about capturing the town.

The town has nothing to offer.

It's all about what's coming out of the ground.

We have a lot of people here that meet halfway, and Wytheville seems to be halfway for about a lot of the people on the East Coast.

And it's always been like that.

So when the, you know, when the mines shut down, it really didn't affect Wytheville per se.

It affected Ivanhoe.

It affected Austinville.

It affected all of our little communities.

-[Josh] Throughout the county?

-Yeah, the southern side of the county.

-You could do a whole segment on Rural Retreat.

You could do probably two hours' worth easily on the characters and stuff that have lived here and passed through and the mark they left too.

That's a big thing.

You're not even aware of this building that we're in; it's very architecturally unique.

It was built around 1870, 1875, I think, really.

So it's very unique.

And somebody-- Pepper Brothers, wanted to invest in the community, so they made something that was really going to stand out and last a long time.

But nobody knows it was them except me, and I just know it because I've researched it.

The people that invested in their community, that donated things to the community, you know, that's something that we don't see much now.

-I mean, you had all kinds of people coming in from all over the place.

-All the mines really drew, yeah.

Well, the echoes are still there.

I mean, with me, because musically, so all these different cultures were coming into the mine sections, and you know, you had blues players, you had jazz, you had all the stuff, and they were interchanging.

So I was exposed to a lot of different types of music that-- -A lot of cross pollination.

-Oh yeah.

And I still like just about all forms of music.

-[Josh's voice] What Jim describes isn't just musical cross pollination.

It's the way culture settles into a community layer by layer.

Across Wythe County, you can feel it in the small things: the songs traded across generations, the craftsmanship in old buildings, the quiet care poured into places like Jim's Own Barbershop.

It's a reminder that heritage lives in the everyday spaces people keep alive.

[♪ ♪ ♪] [Josh] So everyone around town told me I had to come here to Skeeters.

-[man] Well, they, uh-- -[Josh] What's the draw?

-You're looking at it.

I always tell everybody the hot dogs aren't world famous.

It's the people inside Skeeters that are world famous.

And that's what kept us going for a 100 years.

Some of the history to the building is, Ian Umberger is who they call Skeeter.

I believe they came here in the 40s, and upstairs was the birthplace of the First Lady, Edith Bolling Wilson.

-[Josh's voice] Edith Bolling Wilson was born here in 1872 in a modest room just above the storefronts on Main Street.

Decades later, during President Woodrow Wilson's illness, she quietly assumed many of the responsibilities of the presidency, earning her the controversial nickname, the first female president.

That's the kind of quiet history you find in Wythe County, where a First Lady once took her first steps in the very same building that now houses a world famous hot dog counter.

What's the thing everybody's ordering here?

-Skeeter dog.

-[Josh] Skeeter dog?

-People come in, they'll say, give me a Skeeter dog.

A Skeeter dog is, well, a lot of things.

But when someone says I want a Skeeter dog, they want a bright red weenie on a steamed bun with homemade chili, mustard and onions.

Wytheville is community, good community.

It's, uh, I think the world is moving away from community and things are getting spread out, you got the internet and stuff.

When you're in Wytheville, you kind of feel like you're back in time, you know.

The people are close, everybody smiles, they wave at each other.

It's a good feeling, and I think we should, I think everywhere should be like that.

[♪ ♪ ♪] -Wytheville is awesome.

It's home.

It's a great place to raise your kids.

I've met so many people that I wouldn't have met before, and I think the community is so welcoming that when those people come they're like, “Oh, my goodness.” -Wytheville is this quiet, peaceful space that in the background has, it's like, this vision, like, of loveliness that is just full of magic and light and so I feel like it's become this, like, beautiful magnet of light and joy.

We have our issues.

We have, you know, there's a lot going on right now, you know.

But at the end of the day, people genuinely care about each other and they want what's best for the community.

-You know, I think the biggest thing, it is home.

It's just a great place to live.

Wythe County is still building and it's going to, I think it's gonna continue to build and improve, yeah.

Yeah, it's home.

-[singing] ♪ Now go out to your chicken coop ♪ ♪ And ask yourself an honest question ♪ ♪ And the Lord will know it if you lie ♪ ♪ You better turn all them chickens loose ♪ ♪ Or you'll die from indigestion ♪ ♪ When you eat that stolen chicken pie ♪ ♪ And take that keg of gin ♪ ♪ And dump every bit right in the river ♪ ♪ Don't you let ole Satan steer your hand ♪ ♪ And if you fill it up again ♪ ♪ It'll eat a hole right in your liver ♪ ♪ And the gates won't open ♪ ♪ When you reach that promised land ♪ ["We'll Keep Running" by To The Valley] ♪ So don't throw your hopes down a wishing well ♪ [♪ ♪ ♪] ♪ Leave your worries ♪ ♪ And your suitcase ♪ -[Narrator] Nestled in the heart of Appalachia, the University of Virginia's College at Wise is where students experience unique regional culture and the great outdoors.

UVA Wise, empowering students to learn and lead in their communities and the world.