Onley, VA

Onley is an Accomack County town on Virginia’s Eastern Shore that began as a place called Cross Roads. The railroad arrived in 1885, and the crossing quickly grew a post office, stores, a hotel, and a produce trade that sent Shore crops north by rail. The old Onley Railroad Station is now preserved with a model-train museum, while the former Produce Exchange building survives as a church. Onley’s modern map is small, but its railroad-era downtown story is unusually clear.