Gretna, VA

Gretna is a Pittsylvania County town whose present identity came through the railroad. The Lynchburg and Danville line arrived in the 1870s, followed by the Franklin and Pittsylvania Railroad, and the settlement passed through names including Franklin Junction and Elba before becoming Gretna in 1914. The town's older layer remains at Yates Tavern, a frontier-era building that still stands, while the Gretna Commercial Historic District preserves 26 buildings from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Sharswood Plantation sits nearby, adding the tobacco-era landscape to the town's story. US 29 and US 40 meet here, so Gretna still reads as a crossroads: railroad town at its core, highway town in its current daily shape.