Dobson, NC

Dobson is Surry County's seat, a town that took on the county-government role in the 1850s after the earlier seat at Rockford. The courthouse and the Edwards-Franklin House give the center two landmarks with documented nineteenth-century histories. Dobson sits between Mount Airy and the Yadkin Valley, where the roads move from town streets into farms and vineyards. Wine added a newer chapter to that map. Shelton Vineyards sits in Dobson and helped lead the creation of the Yadkin Valley American Viticultural Area in 2003. Town Hall, the courthouse, the vineyard, and the roads toward Surry County's smaller communities make Dobson read as a county seat with an agricultural landscape close around it.