Appalachian Community Histories – Woodway, Lee County: Tradeville, Witt’s Store, and a Crossroads Community in the Records
Woodway sits in eastern Lee County, Virginia, near the old road world between Pennington Gap, Jonesville, Station Creek, Dot, and Elk Knob. Like many Appalachian communities, its history is easier to find in scattered records than in one single town history. It appears in newspapers, post office references, census geography, land records, road descriptions, stone quarry records, and the geologic literature of the United States Geological Survey.
The clearest early history comes from a 1929 article in the Powell Valley News simply titled “WOODWAY.” That article remembered the place before it was Woodway. For about seventy-five years, the newspaper said, the community four miles east of Pennington Gap had been known as Tradeville. It was a place where people met to trade horses and mules, and where droves were bought and taken toward North Carolina. The name itself tells the story. Before Woodway was a modern roadside place, it was a trading point.
Tradeville and the Old Economy
The old Tradeville story fits the wider pattern of early Lee County. Before paved roads, modern highways, and regular motor traffic reshaped the county, crossroads stores and river movement mattered. The 1929 newspaper account said that the dry goods store of note east of Jonesville was at Tradeville and was owned by Hurst and Shelburn. The same account described the firm buying and selling thousands of bushels of wheat that were rafted down Powell River to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
That detail is one of the most important pieces of the Woodway record. It places the community in an older commercial world built around livestock, local stores, wheat, river travel, and long-distance exchange. Tradeville was not only a name on a road. It was a place where farm products, animals, credit, and news passed through the same local center.
Lee County itself had been formed in 1792 from Russell County, with part of Scott County added in 1823. The Library of Virginia notes that many loose records before 1860 are missing, probably destroyed when Union forces burned the courthouse in 1863, but the county microfilm collection still points researchers toward deeds, wills, tax books, and other surviving local records. Those records are the best next step for tracing the Hurst, Shelburn, Witt, Wood, Tritt, Parsons, and related families who appear around Woodway in the newspaper record.
From Witt’s Store to Woodway
The Powell Valley News account gives Woodway a sequence of names. First came Tradeville. Later, J. F. Witt did business at the place for many years, and the community became known as Witt’s Store. Eventually, the crossroads store was purchased by R. J. Wood & Sons, moved about one-fourth of a mile west of the old location, and the name changed from Witt’s Store to Woodway.
That movement from Tradeville to Witt’s Store to Woodway is more than a naming story. It shows how small Appalachian communities often formed around the storekeeper, the road, and the family business. A name could follow a merchant. A post office could preserve an older place name. A voting precinct might remember a store that had already passed into history. The 1929 article said that a post office known as Zion’s Mill had been left at Tradeville for fifty years, while Hurst’s Store remained the voting precinct where citizens still voted.
That layered record matters because Woodway was not born all at once. The modern name rested on older community geography. Tradeville, Zion’s Mill, Hurst’s Store, Witt’s Store, and Woodway all belonged to the same local landscape of stores, roads, farms, churches, cemeteries, and families.
Roads, Lots, and a New Woodway
By 1929, Woodway was being described as a developing crossroads. The newspaper placed it at the crossing of State Road No. 11, better known as the Lonesome Pine Trail, and State Road No. 10, which the article also identified with Federal Highway Route 411. The same account said that twenty-five to thirty homes had been built in Woodway within the previous two or three years, and that more construction was still going on.
J. F. Witt still owned large acreage in and around Woodway. In May 1929, he offered two new five-room dwellings and twenty-three business and residential lots at public auction. The follow-up report, “Woodway Lot Sale a Success,” said the sale brought $4,676.50 for twenty-three lots, a little more than two acres, and that the price was described as the highest at which real estate had sold in Hickory Flats. The article added that buyers seemed to be purchasing with plans to build rather than only to speculate.
That lot sale captures Woodway at a particular moment. The older Tradeville economy had not disappeared, but a new road-centered settlement was forming. The newspaper expected Woodway to grow quickly and even suggested that a church might soon be erected there.
Community Life in the Newspaper Columns
The Woodway record is not only land sales and place names. The 1925 Powell Valley News columns show a living community in small pieces. In January 1925, the Woodway Wildcats basketball team played the local Shamrocks in what the paper called one of the cleanest games of the season. The Wildcats lost, but the report still described a hard-fought game and named Woodway players in the scoring column.
Other 1925 notices show the kind of community life that rarely appears in official histories. A Woodway column reported a family reunion at the home of Samuel Tritt, with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren present. The same column mentioned visits between Dryden, Benedict, Norton, Duffield, and Woodway, along with drought affecting corn and grassland.
Another Woodway notice from 1925 said tobacco growers were busy cutting tobacco, while corn and grass lands were suffering for want of rain. In the same newspaper section, the death of Glay Williams of Darby was reported, with burial in the Odd Fellows Cemetery at Woodway.
Those details are small, but they are the substance of local history. They show Woodway as a place of farms, tobacco, kinship networks, church ties, schoolmates, cemetery burials, road travel, and local sports. The community was not just a point on a map. It was a place where people visited, traded, worshiped, played, buried their dead, and watched the weather with practical concern.
Post Office, Census, and Map Records
Woodway also appears in postal and census geography. Jim Forte’s postal history listing places Woodway, Lee County, as a post office from 1935 to 1963, followed by Woodway Rural Station from 1963 to 1978. That listing should be checked against the National Archives’ Record of Appointment of Postmasters, Microfilm Publication M841, because NARA explains that those records contain postmaster appointment information for the period from 1832 through September 30, 1971.
The 1940 census enumeration district descriptions also place Woodway in the federal record. A National Archives census description for Lee County lists Woodway as part of Enumeration District 53-14 and part of Enumeration District 53-15 in Rocky Station Magisterial District. That gives researchers a way to locate Woodway-area households in the 1940 population schedules.
For map placement, TopoZone identifies Woodway on the Stickleyville USGS topographic map in Lee County at roughly 36.7317559 north latitude and 82.9921102 west longitude, with an elevation of about 1,453 feet. That places Woodway in the upland road and creek geography of eastern Lee County rather than in the courthouse town world of Jonesville or the coal-town center of Pennington Gap.
Stone, Limestone, and the Name in Geology
Woodway’s name also entered scientific literature. The United States Geological Survey’s Geolex database identifies the Woodway Limestone as a geologic unit named for Woodway, Lee County, Virginia. The USGS entry places its type section on the north slopes of Elk Knob, about 1.75 miles east of Woodway.
That means Woodway is preserved not only in local memory and newspaper columns, but also in the language of geology. The name became attached to limestone in the Appalachian basin, connecting a local Lee County community to formal scientific mapping and stratigraphy. Geolex also describes Woodway Limestone as part of the regional sequence of Ordovician rocks, tied to the geology of southwestern Virginia and nearby Tennessee.
The later industrial record adds another layer. Mindat identifies the Woodway Stone Quarry in Lee County as a limestone quarry and cites a 1971 federal mine safety inspection report, noting that the quarry was operated by Woodway Stone Company and included a mill.
The legal record continues that business trail. In 1995, the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia decided United States v. Woodway Stone Co., Inc., a bankruptcy-related case involving Woodway Stone Company, Mary Ethel Jessee, and Internal Revenue Service claims. The case is not early community history, but it shows how the Woodway name remained attached to local industry and business records into the late twentieth century.
Water, Sewer, and the Modern Community
Modern records show Woodway as part of a living service area rather than only a historic crossroads. The Woodway Water Authority describes itself as a community waterworks owned and operated by the authority. It serves the Elk Knob, Dot, and Woodway communities, along with residents along the U.S. Route 58 corridor from Jonesville to the Powell River crossing in eastern Lee County.
The Lee County Public Service Authority adds the broader public infrastructure context. The PSA says it was established by resolution of the Lee County Board of Supervisors on November 13, 1989, and now provides water and wastewater service to about 5,000 customers in Lee County, along with commercial services to the Lee County Federal Prison and the Town of Jonesville.
Those modern utility records may seem far removed from horse trading at Tradeville, but they tell the same kind of story in a different era. Woodway has always been tied to movement, roads, water, land, and public service. The names changed, the economy changed, and the records changed, but the community remained part of the working geography of Lee County.
Why Woodway Matters
Woodway is the kind of Appalachian place that can be missed if history is limited to incorporated towns, coal camps, courthouses, and famous events. Its record is quieter. A 1929 newspaper article preserves the memory of Tradeville, Witt’s Store, and the naming of Woodway. A lot sale records a moment of growth. Newspaper columns preserve reunions, tobacco cutting, basketball games, illness, visiting, and burial. Postal records mark the community’s federal identity. Census maps place it in household geography. Geological publications carry its name into the language of limestone. Utility records show that Woodway is still a service center for the surrounding communities.
The story of Woodway is not a single dramatic event. It is a layered community history. It began as a place to trade, became a store-centered settlement, grew around roads and lots, and remained in the records because families, businesses, churches, cemeteries, roads, quarries, and public services kept giving the place meaning.
Sources & Further Reading
Powell Valley News. “WOODWAY.” Pennington Gap, VA. 1929. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1929
Powell Valley News. “Woodway Lot Sale a Success.” Pennington Gap, VA. 1929. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1929
Powell Valley News. “Woodway” community notices and local items. Pennington Gap, VA. 1925. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1925
Powell Valley News. 1933 annual run. Pennington Gap, VA. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1933
Powell Valley News. 1959 annual run. Pennington Gap, VA. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1959
Powell Valley News. 1961 annual run. Pennington Gap, VA. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1961
Powell Valley News. 1975 annual run. Pennington Gap, VA. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1975
Powell Valley News. 1985 annual run. Pennington Gap, VA. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/powell-valley-news-1985
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records: Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–1971.” Washington, DC: National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
Jim Forte Postal History. “Virginia Post Offices: Lee County.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?county=Lee&pagenum=5&searchtext=&state=VA&task=display
United States Census Bureau. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940: Population Schedules, Lee County, Virginia, Enumeration Districts 53-14 and 53-15. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration. https://catalog.archives.gov/
National Archives and Records Administration. “1940 Census Enumeration District Descriptions: Virginia, Lee County, ED 53-13 through ED 53-17.” National Archives Identifier 5885093. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1940_Census_Enumeration_District_Descriptions_-_Virginia_-_Lee_County_-_ED_53-13,_ED_53-14,_ED_53-15,_ED_53-16,_ED_53-17_-_NARA_-_5885093.jpg
U.S. Geological Survey. “Woodway Limestone.” Geolex. National Geologic Map Database. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Geolex/Units/Woodway_4463.html
U.S. Geological Survey. “Woodway Limestone References.” Geolex. National Geologic Map Database. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Geolex/UnitRefs/WoodwayRefs_4463.html
Miller, Ralph L., and W. P. Brosgé. Geology and Oil Resources of the Jonesville District, Lee County, Virginia. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 990. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0990/report.pdf
Miller, Ralph L., and John B. Roen. Geologic Map of the Pennington Gap Quadrangle, Lee County, Virginia, and Harlan County, Kentucky. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1973. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_10889.htm
U.S. Geological Survey. “North Fork Powell River at Pennington Gap, VA, USGS 03530550.” Water Data for the Nation. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/03530550/
U.S. Geological Survey. “North Fork Powell River Near Dryden, VA, USGS 03530225.” Water Data for the Nation. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/03530225/
TopoZone. “Woodway, Virginia.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://www.topozone.com/virginia/lee-va/city/woodway-3/
Library of Virginia. “Lee County Microfilm.” Richmond: Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA149
Library of Virginia. “Chancery Records Index.” Richmond: Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/
Lee County Circuit Court Clerk. “Clerk of the Circuit Court.” Lee County, Virginia. https://www.leecova.com/
Lee County Public Service Authority. “About the PSA.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://www.leecopsa.org/about
Lee County Public Service Authority and LENOWISCO Planning District. Woodway Sewer Extension. LENOWISCO Wastewater Projects. https://www.cppdc.org/Lenowisco_Wastewater_Projects/Lee%20County%20PSA%20-%20Woodway%20Sewer%20Ext.pdf
LENOWISCO Planning District Commission. “Wastewater Projects.” https://cppdc.com/lenowisco_wastewater_projects/
Woodway Water Authority. “Safe Drinking Water Services.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://woodwaywaterauthority.com/
Woodway Water Authority. “About Us.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://woodwaywaterauthority.com/about-us/
Woodway Water Authority. “Contact Us.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://woodwaywaterauthority.com/contact-us/
United States v. Woodway Stone Co., Inc., 187 B.R. 916. United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, 1995. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/BR/187/916/2022511/
Mindat.org. “Woodway Stone Quarry, Lee County, Virginia, USA.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://www.mindat.org/loc-104167.html
Better Business Bureau. “Woodway Stone Co.” Accessed May 20, 2026. https://www.bbb.org/
Catron, Ada Grace. Early Records of Lee County, Virginia: Volume II. Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press, 1989. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/
Tennis, Joe. Southwest Virginia Crossroads: An Almanac of Place Names and Places to See. Johnson City, TN: Overmountain Press, 2004. https://www.worldcat.org/
FamilySearch. “Lee County, Virginia Genealogy.” FamilySearch Research Wiki. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Lee_County,_Virginia_Genealogy
The Lee County Story. University of Virginia’s College at Wise, Lee County heritage project. https://leecountystory.com/
Author Note: Woodway is one of those Lee County communities where the story survives in fragments, from newspaper columns and post office records to roads, stone, water lines, and family names. I like these places because they show how much Appalachian history can live in a store name, a crossroads, or a community notice that almost slipped past us.