Honaker, VA

Honaker is a Russell County town with 1,217 residents in the 2020 census. It sits in the Clinch River watershed, in a small valley where a major rail line and highway once opened direct routes to timber, coal, and other Appalachian mineral deposits. Each spring, the town holds the Honaker Redbud Festival and leans into its title, “Redbud Capital of the World,” when the redbud trees begin to bloom. The festival gives the town calendar a very specific local signature.

William Ferrill established a homesite here as early as 1772, and New Garden Fort was built nearby during Dunmore's War in 1774. Modern Honaker grew rapidly after its 1889 establishment along the railroad and highway. The Honaker Commercial Historic District now covers 24 one-, two-, and three-story buildings from the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, including banks, shops, a hotel, and lodge buildings. Honaker is a Virginia town with a redbud celebration in the present and a rail-and-mineral boom town underneath its storefronts.