Buckingham County, Virginia

The Old Dominion

- The Commonwealth of Virginia -

Piedmont Province

Buckingham County

Buckingham County is located in the heart of central Virginia. Some say it is at the geographic center of the state. The county is bounded on the north by the James River and on the northwest by the Appomattox River. It has vast woodlands, an abundance of mineral deposits and a plentiful water supply. This is a rural county with 389 farms and 81,150 acres of farmland. This county has a mixture of livestock, including hogs, sheep and laying hens, but mostly beef cattle. More than 10,000 head of beef cows are here. Buckingham farmers also produce some wheat and tobacco, as well as 15,000 acres of hay.

Our first foray into Buckingham County was from the south on US 15, which runs through the middle of the county, north-south.

While coming from the south on US 15, in Prince Edward County on Buckingham's southern border, we spotted what looked like twin mountains or hill crests in the distance, beyond the soft rolling hills of Prince Edward. You can see them in the distance, to right of center in this photo. This photo was taken from Prince Edward County. This next shot, taken again from Prince Edward, zooms in a bit more.

The zoom view now make those "twin mountains" look more like a ridge line. You can see a small crest in the middle of the two larger hill tops. We kept on driving on US 15 to the north, and crossed into Buckingham County, at which point we found ourselves at what we learned to be Willis Mountain. Before proceeding with our exploration of Willis Mountain, we want to show you two relief maps presented by the College of William and Mary that depict the geography of what we are looking at.

Composed of kyanite-bearing quartzite, Willis Mountain stands more resistant to the forces of weathering, 170 meters above the Piedmont in Buckingham County. Much of the mountain's ridge has been removed in kyanite mining.

Here, we started closing in on Willis Mountain. You can see it just seems to rise out what is otherwise a slow rolling landscape. Here is another shot.

This view gives you more of a sense of a ridge than a "mountain." As we drove around this particular area, not exactly knowing what we were looking at, well, we were surprised at what we saw.

This shot is of Willis Mountain, just to the left of the photo above. We felt we had traveled from Buckingham County, Virginia to the Wild West. In this next shot, you'll see what is going on here.

Mining is going on, as you can see. We have learned from the College of William and Mary that Kyanite (Al2SiO5) is a common accessory mineral in metamorphic quartzites exposed in the central Virginia Piedmont. At Willis Mountain in Buckingham County kyanite is pale blue-gray to white. This mining facility belongs to Kyanite Mining Corp, headquartered near Dillwyn, Virginia. It is the world's largest and oldest producer of the refractory and ceramic "additives" Kyanite and Mullite. These materials are used in products like ceramic kitchen tiles and electrical insulating porcelains. They make up the abrasive element in railroad brake shoe pads and the heat retaining material in ceramic pizza stones. The refractory industry uses kyanite in the manufacture of heat resistant bricks, mortars, and sprays, which make the production of steel and aluminum possible. Here's a closer look at the plant.

The site first went into operation in the mid-1950’s. This next photo is an aerial shot provided by the company. While looking at all this from the ground level, it is apparent the mountain has been severed to accommodate the mining. The photo from the air most certainly confirms that.

This aerial shot was taken during the summer months, while the previous ones were taken in March. We would like to point out how heavily wooded the near environs are.

Landscape

These next three landscape shots were taken in and around the Willis Mountain area. Recall that the experts say that the main reason Willis Mountain stands is that it is composed of kyanite-bearing quartzite, which are more resistant to the forces of weathering. It would be interesting to explore why or how this small segment of earth was so endowed

This last photo is particularly interesting as we see new, fresh, bright green growth of evergreens. We mentioned earlier that the land in the county is heavily forested, and, as you will see in a moment, logging is important to the county.

Dillwyn, logging, the railway and James River at the Bremo Bluff crossing

Welcome to Dillwyn, Virginia, located alongside a railway line. It's always great to see the "Purina Chows" brand on a building, in this case the Buckingham Farm Supply. Off to the left, you see the Dillwyn train station which had been rehabilitated.

These rail cars are parked near the Dillwyn Railroad Station. One, on the top photo, is marked "National Railway Historical Society (NRHS)," which is a national endeavor, founded in 1935, and designed to preserve a great national heritage. It turns out the Buckingham Branch (BBRR) Railroad Company line extends from Dillwyn in the south to Bremo Bluff at the James River in the north, with US 15 following along its side. It is about 17 miles long. This railway link has been in operation since 1885, with BBRR acquiring all properties in March 1989. These cars at Dillwyn are part of the Richmond Chapter of the NRHS. The BBRR is a very small Dillwyn-based company.

Just up the road a bit, again, we are on US 15 heading north, you can see the logs piled up on railway flatbeds. The BBRR is a freight railroad that delivers and receives carloads from CSXT at Strathmore and Staunton, Virginia and Norfolk Southern at Pleasant Valley, Virginia. On the Buckingham Division, most of the BB's traffic is outbound, originating in Dillwyn or other points along the railroad in Buckingham County. These include Kyanite ore (aluminum silicate) mined at Willis Mountain. It is shipped in bulk in covered hoppers or bagged in boxcars to points all across North America as well as overseas. A by-product of Kyanite production is sand which the BBRR ships to a foundry in Lynchburg, Virginia, to the west The BBRR also hauls lumber in the form of untreated railroad crossties cut at local sawmills and shipped from Koppers Industries' local tie procurement yard to various tie treating plants on the east coast. Westvaco and Federal Paper Board have wood procurement yards on the BBRR and both ship longwood via the BBRR to their respective paper mills in Covington, Virginia and Acme, North Carolina. The BBRR also ships carloads of crushed stone and related products from the Buckingham slate quarries to various points in the U.S. and slate cinders to Solite Corporation plants in Virginia and Florida.

This is a shot of the nearby logging mill. In the rear left, you can see the logs stacked up. In the foreground, you see finished wood ready for shipment out as described above.

This is the BBRR coming out of northern Buckingham County, crossing the James River on a high bridge just east of the US 15 bridge (from which this photo was taken).

You are now looking from the US 15 Bridge at the BBRR track bridge. Both bridges are crossing between Buckingham County on the south (right side in the photo) into Fluvanna County on the north (left side in this photo), and you are looking downstream the James River on its way to Richmond and thence to the outlet of the Chesapeake Bay into the Atlantic Ocean. After going into Fluvanna County at Bremo Bluff, the BBRR track meets up with another track belonging to the C&O (Chesapeake & Ohio) Railroad that heads east to Richmond and west, then southwest to Lynchburg, hugging the James River nearly all the way. Prior to crossing the James, there is a track spur that runs briefly to the east, parallel to the James River, to a switchback at New Canton, which is on the south side of the James River in Buckingham.

While it is in Fluvanna County, you will note in the distance, on the left side, some smoke stacks. We zoomed in on those for the photo below. They belong to a power plant on the river. Here's a zoom shot.

As an aside, since this is the Buckingham and not the Fluvanna County section, this power plant at Bremo is the largest on-line customer of the coal traffic coming along these C&O tracks from West Virginia. It reportedly has a huge coal yard to serve the plant. It would be an interesting task to find out why this is a coal-powered vice a hydro driven electricity producing plant.

As one drives along US 15 from south to north, to the west for much of the ride is the 19,535 acre Appamattox-Buckingham State Forest. So one sees a lot of trees. But as you approach Sprouses Corner at the intersection of US 60 and US 15, the forest is no longer there and you get a wide open view to the west across a vast plain straight to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Not having expected this view, your editor was both surprised, amazed and delighted with the view. The next photo is a zoom from the same location from which the above photo was taken. Roughly speaking, you are looking across much of Buckingham County, and all of Nelson and/or Amherst counties as well. Fantastic!