Parksley, VA

Parksley is an Accomack County town on Virginia's Eastern Shore, laid out after the Parksley Land and Improvement Company bought 160 acres from Eleanor and Benjamin Parks in 1885. The town was incorporated in 1904, and its first big reason for being was the New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk Railroad, which reached the Shore in the mid-1880s. The name came from the Parks family; the town's streets and Victorian homes still reflect that planned beginning. Agriculture remains part of the local economy, including poultry processing operations tied to the Shore's farm network.

The Eastern Shore Railway Museum gives Parksley an unusually tangible railroad past. A former Hopeton station was moved to town and restored, and the museum's rolling stock and equipment sit near the old railroad center. Around it are a downtown with local stores and a farmer's market, tree-lined residential streets, a town park with tennis and pickleball courts, and the Jerry Burkhead War Memorial. Parksley is a compact Shore town where the railroad, farm economy, and civic center overlap. You can read its history in the street plan, the museum cars, the old homes, and the businesses that still give the town a reason to be on the road.