Wytheville? (Abingdon, Marion, Blue Ridge: theatre, transportation, parking)

[vtnm]

Not much talk about Wytheville. Anyone know anything about it? It looks close enough to everything and more rural? Anything I should know?

[roanoker 4]

I visited there last week. They have a great dinner theatre, lots of tourists.
The downtown area has been vastly improved recently and it looked like they
brought an old art deco movie theatre back to life. There are lots of wide streets and parking is easy to allow you to walk around town.

[whynot?]

I grew up near there (in Marion). Wytheville, Marion, and Abingdon used to be (30-40 years ago or more) three fairly similar towns spaced about 25 miles apart on I-81. Now they're somewhat dissimilar, with Wytheville and Abingdon having more commercial and industrial development and greater access to transportation corridors (and thus more jobs) than Marion.

Wythe county is fairly rural -- lots of rolling farmland nestled in the Blue Ridge, but the old downtown is quite charming, has some interesting history, and seems to have an active, civil-minded population. A few of the local newspapers have been consolidated, but I think the regional paper is still headquartered in Wytheville. Reading it for a few weeks will tell you a great deal about what goes on in the area: SWVAToday - Southwest Virginia News and Community Resource