Chilhowie, VA

Chilhowie is a Smyth County town in the Middle Fork of the Holston Valley, where I-81 cuts through a place with a much older story than the highway suggests. The 2020 census counted 1,654 residents. The name is said to come from a Cherokee word for “valley of many deer,” and the community was first known around Colonel James Patton's Town House in the 1740s. Later it became Greever's Switch, then Chilhowie, as the railroad and local businesses gave the valley a firmer center. The town's present map carries the marks of both industry and weather.

Pottery was an early local business, while the 1977 floods reshaped a largely Black neighborhood along the Middle Fork and led to a multi-use recreation area. Downtown Chilhowie, the river, I-81, and the historic district sit close enough to make the town easy to read. Chilhowie's local scoop is a one-traffic-light town with a deep valley history, a railroad name in its past, and a river that has shaped the community more than once.