Appalachian Community Histories – Midway, Scott County: A School, a Church, and a Road North of Gate City
Midway is one of those Appalachian places that does not appear to have grown around a courthouse, railroad depot, or incorporated town government. It is easier to find through scattered records than through one single written history. The name survives in school references, road maps, church records, cemetery readings, family names, and community news from the Gate City Herald. Taken together, those records point to a small but organized Scott County community north of Gate City, tied most strongly to Midway School, Midway High School, Midway Road, and Midway Memorial United Methodist Church.
The first caution is that Scott County had more than one use of the name Midway. The official Weber City town history says the Gate City to Kingsport community was once called Midway by some people because it lay between those two places, but Frank M. Parker considered that name unsuitable because another Midway already existed about five miles north of Gate City. That older Midway north of Gate City is the community this article follows.
Scott County itself was formed by act of the Virginia General Assembly on November 24, 1814, from parts of Washington, Lee, and Russell Counties. The county’s official history notes that it was named for General Winfield Scott, that the first court was held at Big Moccasin Gap in 1815, and that the first public free schools in the county opened in 1870. That last fact matters for Midway because the community’s strongest surviving public record trail runs through education.
A Community in the School Records
The best local secondary source for Midway appears to be Charlotte Nickels’s “The Story of Midway School,” preserved through the Scott County Historical Society’s online school history material. That account identifies Midway School as a place between Gate City and Nickelsville and between the DeKalb and Johnson districts. It also says the Midway Community was formed when Midway School was first built in 1915.
That date places Midway School in the generation after Virginia’s public school system had become a normal part of county life. Virginia established its first statewide system of free public schools in 1870 after the ratification of a new state constitution, and the first schools opened under that system in November of that year. By the early twentieth century, rural schools across Scott County were more than classrooms. They were public gathering places, neighborhood landmarks, and signs that a community had enough families, children, and local identity to be recognized in county school administration.
Midway’s newspaper record shows that the school was not only a place for lessons. In March 1940, a “Midway News” item in the Gate City Herald reported that “The Antics of Andrew,” a three-act comedy, would be presented at Midway High School by the juniors and seniors. The item gives a glimpse of a school that functioned as a community stage as well as a classroom.
The school also appears in county staffing notices. In July 1941, the Gate City Herald printed a Scott County teacher placement list for the 1941 to 1942 school year. Under the DeKalb District, Midway was listed with H. K. Smith as principal, followed by named teachers. More than a decade later, in July 1953, the paper listed Midway High School with Charles H. Orr as principal and named multiple teachers connected to the school.
Those brief notices are important because they show Midway as part of Scott County’s formal educational network. They also preserve names that can be followed into census records, cemetery books, deeds, obituaries, and family papers. For a place like Midway, where the community story is scattered, a teacher list can become a map of neighborhood life.
Midway High School and the Wider County
Midway High School connected nearby families to a broader county world. Students were part of a local school, but their achievements, programs, plays, and activities appeared in a county newspaper read beyond the immediate community. In May 1952, the Gate City Herald carried a Midway valedictorian item, showing the school’s place in the public cycle of graduations and student honors.
That same public record also hints at the countywide role of small rural high schools before later consolidation changed the educational landscape. Midway, Nickelsville, Gate City, and other schools formed a network of places where families measured time by school terms, graduations, ball games, clubs, and programs. When high schools later consolidated, many smaller school names remained in memory, photographs, yearbooks, and local history pages rather than in active school buildings.
The Midway School photographs preserved by local historical society pages are valuable for that reason. They do not simply show a building. They show groups of students, teachers, and graduates who carried the Midway name into family histories across Scott County. One school photo page notes that many of the contributed images are from Midway School, with others from Nickelsville and other Scott County schools.
Clubs, 4-H, and Community Life
Midway’s records also show organized civic life. In June 1951, the Gate City Herald reported on a Midway Community Club meeting and noted that a club president was to speak there. In May 1952, the newspaper reported that the Midway Community Club met with the Holston Institute Club and presented a program.
These notices are short, but they matter. A community club meant meetings, officers, programs, visitors, and shared projects. It shows that Midway was not only a name on a road or a school roster. It was a place where residents gathered, planned, hosted, and represented themselves to neighboring communities.
The 4-H record adds another layer. In February 1954, the Gate City Herald printed a “MIDWAY” item with Marcheta Blair as reporter, describing the Midway 4-H Club’s monthly meeting. In April of the same year, the paper reported that Eddie Daugherty of the Midway 4-H Club took third place in a heifer show with his Hereford. By May 1962, the Midway Community Club still appeared in the paper, when Carmen Stallard from the club won a grand prize in a food exhibit.
Those items place Midway in the world of farm families, school activities, youth clubs, and county fairs. They also point researchers toward family names connected with the community, including Blair, Daugherty, Stallard, McConnell, Kilgore, Elliott, and others found in school, cemetery, and obituary references.
Church, Cemeteries, and Family Memory
Midway Memorial United Methodist Church remains one of the clearest modern anchors for the name. The United Methodist Church’s directory lists Midway Memorial United Methodist Church at 5532 Veterans Memorial Highway in Gate City, Virginia. Modern church listings do not tell the whole history, but they help show continuity between the older Midway community and the living religious geography of Scott County.
Cemetery records help fill in the rest of the picture. The Midway Community Cemetery, also known as Blair-Ellott Cemetery, is listed near Blairs Store Road in the Gate City area. Cemetery books and grave listings are especially useful for Midway because they preserve family clusters and local place references that may not appear in formal histories. Scott County cemetery material also points to nearby burial grounds tied to the Midway area, including Dougherty Cemetery and Elliott Cemetery references. One cemetery listing describes a cemetery on State Route 675 in the Midway area, on the old Compton farm, two miles from Midway High School.
For local historians, these cemetery references should be treated as leads rather than final proof. The strongest method is to compare cemetery books, headstone photographs, death certificates, obituaries, church records, and courthouse records. In a community like Midway, the same family names often appear across all of them.
Midway Road and the Map of the Community
Midway is also a road story. The Virginia Department of Transportation identifies Route 675 as Midway Road in Scott County, and a 2025 VDOT notice described a Route 72 location as about one half mile north of Route 675, Midway Road. The state road map for Scott County shows the county’s state-maintained road network and places Route 675 within the larger road geography of Gate City, Yuma, Nickelsville, and surrounding districts.
Maps are some of the best sources for Midway because they let researchers connect the written record to the ground. The USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection provides a public digital repository of historic USGS topographic maps, including older quadrangle maps that can be used to trace roads, schools, churches, streams, ridges, and named features over time. Map indexes for the Gate City quadrangle identify Midway Church and Midway School among the named features in the area.
Roads, schools, churches, and cemeteries are often the most reliable way to understand an unincorporated Appalachian community. Midway’s boundaries were not drawn like a town. They were remembered through where children went to school, where families worshiped, where roads met, where neighbors gathered, and where the dead were buried.
The Records That Still Need to Be Followed
The Library of Virginia’s Scott County microfilm collection is the best starting point for deeper research. It identifies Scott County as formed in 1814 from Lee, Russell, and Washington Counties and lists record categories that include county administrative records, court records, fiduciary records, land records, marriage records and vital statistics, military and pension records, and wills.
Those records are where Midway’s deeper history is most likely to be found. Land deeds may show when school or church property was acquired. County administrative records may preserve school board actions, road matters, or local appointments. Marriage and vital records can confirm family ties. Wills and fiduciary records can show property passing from one generation to another. Court records may preserve disputes, estates, and trustee matters that never made it into newspapers.
Census records can also help reconstruct the community. National Archives guidance explains that enumeration district maps show the boundaries and numbers used to administer census collection. FamilySearch provides digital access to National Archives microfilm publication A3378, which includes enumeration district maps for the 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses. When those maps are compared with federal census schedules, road maps, school lists, and cemetery records, Midway’s family landscape can be reconstructed more carefully.
Why Midway Matters
Midway’s history is not the kind that announces itself through one famous event. It is the history of a place that appears in fragments. A school play in 1940. A principal’s name in 1941. A community club program in 1952. A 4-H report in 1954. A church directory. A cemetery beside a road. A route number on a highway map.
Those fragments are still enough to show a real community. Midway belonged to the rural educational, religious, agricultural, and civic life of Scott County. It was north of Gate City, distinct from the later Weber City naming story, and closely tied to the school that carried its name. Its history now depends on the careful work of reading small records together.
For Appalachian communities like Midway, the absence of a single town history does not mean the absence of history. It means the story has to be gathered from the places where ordinary life left marks: in school records, church records, cemeteries, roads, newspapers, maps, and family memory.
Sources & Further Reading
Library of Virginia. “Scott County Microfilm.” Library of Virginia, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA255
Scott County, Virginia. “Early History of Scott County.” Scott County, Virginia, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.scottcountyva.gov/177/Early-History-of-Scott-County
Nickels, Charlotte. “The Story of Midway School.” Scott County Historical Society, accessed May 27, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~vaschs2/midway_school.htm
“Midway News.” Gate City Herald, March 28, 1940. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19400328.1.2
“Teachers Assigned to Schools of Scott County for 1941-1942.” Gate City Herald, July 10, 1941. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19410710.1.1
“Scott County Neighbors.” Gate City Herald, June 7, 1951. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19510607.1.5
“Scott County Neighbors.” Gate City Herald, August 2, 1951. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19510802.1.8
“Scott County Neighbors.” Gate City Herald, May 15, 1952. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19520515.1.8
“Midway Valedictorian.” Gate City Herald, May 22, 1952. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19520522.1.1
“Scott County Teachers for 1953-54.” Gate City Herald, July 16, 1953. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19530716.1.1
“Midway.” Gate City Herald, February 11, 1954. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19540211.1.5
“Eddie Daugherty of Midway 4-H Club Wins Third Place.” Gate City Herald, April 15, 1954. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19540415.1.1
“Midway Community Club.” Gate City Herald, May 23, 1962. Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=GCH19620523.1.1
Virginia Chronicle. “Gate City Herald.” Library of Virginia, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.virginiachronicle.com/?a=cl&cl=CL1&sp=GCH
United States Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Maps: Preserving the Past.” U.S. Geological Survey, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
MyTopo. “Gate City, Virginia USGS Topographic Map.” MyTopo Map Store, accessed May 27, 2026. https://mapstore.mytopo.com/products/ustopo_virginia_gate-city
Virginia Department of Transportation. “Scott County, Virginia: State Roads Map.” Virginia Department of Transportation, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/media/vdotvirginiagov/travel-and-traffic/maps/counties/84_Scott_acc052323_PM.pdf
Virginia Department of Transportation. “Be Alert to Signals Controlling Traffic on Route 72 in Scott County.” Virginia Department of Transportation, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/news-events/news/bristol-district/be-alert-to-signals-controlling-traffic-on-route-72-in-scott-county.php
National Archives and Records Administration. “1940 Census Enumeration District Maps.” National Archives, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/finding-aids
FamilySearch. “United States Enumeration District Maps for the Twelfth through Sixteenth Censuses, 1900-1940.” FamilySearch, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/2329948
FamilySearch. “Scott County, Virginia Genealogy.” FamilySearch Research Wiki, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Scott_County%2C_Virginia_Genealogy
United Methodist Church. “Midway Memorial United Methodist Church.” Find-A-Church, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.umc.org/en/find-a-church/church?id=001Um00000PFM4BIAX
Find a Grave. “Midway Community Cemetery.” Find a Grave, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2226179/midway-community-cemetery
Find a Grave. “Landon Elliott Cemetery.” Find a Grave, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2280592/landon-elliott-cemetery
Peters, Mary B. Kegley, comp. Scott County, Virginia Cemetery Records. Vol. 3. Digitized by Internet Archive, accessed May 27, 2026. https://archive.org/stream/scottcountyvacem03pete/scottcountyvacem03pete_djvu.txt
Peters, Mary B. Kegley, comp. Scott County, Virginia Cemetery Records. Vol. 6. Digitized by Internet Archive, accessed May 27, 2026. https://archive.org/stream/scottcountyvacem06pete/scottcountyvacem06pete_djvu.txt
Scott County Historical Society. “School Photos.” Scott County Historical Society, accessed May 27, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~tnkys/school_photos-pg9.htm
Scott County Historical Society. “Landon Elliott Cemetery.” Scott County Historical Society, accessed May 27, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~vaschs2/landon_elliott.htm
Town of Weber City, Virginia. “Home.” Town of Weber City, accessed May 27, 2026. https://webercityva.org/index.html
Addington, Robert M. History of Scott County, Virginia. Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press, 1932. Reprint, Johnson City, TN: Overmountain Press, 1992. https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Scott_County_Virginia.html?id=n2pWQWkA1cUC
Addington, Hugh Milburn. Encomium for Scott County, Virginia. Gate City, VA: Service Printery, 1951. https://books.google.com/books/about/Encomium_for_Scott_County_Virginia.html?id=NUF5imBVrAYC
Library of Congress. “Courthouse Records.” Virginia: Local History and Genealogy Resource Guide, accessed May 27, 2026. https://guides.loc.gov/virginia-local-history-genealogy/courthouse-records
Encyclopedia Virginia. “Public School System in Virginia, Establishment of the.” Virginia Humanities, accessed May 27, 2026. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/public-school-system-in-virginia-establishment-of-the/
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Appalachian Counties Served by ARC.” Appalachian Regional Commission, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-counties-served-by-arc/
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Virginia.” Appalachian Regional Commission, accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-states/virginia/
Author Note: Midway is the kind of community that reminds readers how much Appalachian history survives in small records. If you have photographs, school memories, church records, or cemetery information tied to Midway, those pieces could help preserve a fuller account.