Bluemont was a town of trains and hotels

Bluemont is a town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Marked by rolling hills and the occasional curve of the Appalachian Trail, it has a quiet dignity that harks back to the days when railroads ruled the rural north. At the heart of Bluemont is the Bluemont Historic District. Among its 43 buildings, the oldest is Clayton Hall (1797), a large stone house located in the center of town that probably looked a lot like a train station to the Amos Clayton family who first built it.

Clayton Hall spent the Civil War and Reconstruction watching other buildings go up. A village grew around it. In the 1850s, a Methodist church took root, still standing today. And then, in 1900, trains arrived. Bluemont’s downtown was transformed. Nowhere is that transformation more plain to see than in the Loudoun House Hotel (1900) and the Blue Ridge Inn (1904). The hotel's wealth, the inn's mettle, mark the end of the railroad era and the start of what Bluemont is today: a peaceful town with a few ghosts, and a great view.

The Bluemont Historic District is at the end of Route 7, in Loudoun County, Virginia. Take a hike up Snickersville Turnpike, walk the Appalachian Trail, and have a look at the old buildings. If you’re lucky, you might see a train.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons