Virginia Highlands Festival Scenes, Part One

The annual Virginia Highlands Festival is held in Abingdon, Virginia, which provides a nice setting among the old buildings in downtown Abingdon. Part of the Festival is an antiques bourse which is housed in two huge tents on the grounds of the community college. These pictures were taken at the antiques show; next installment, the arts & crafts show downtown. You can click on any picture to bring up a larger version.

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Log Houses of Abingdon, Virginia

The town of Abingdon in Washington County, Virginia, grew up around an early settlement called Wolf Hill. In the early Backcountry, Abingdon was a crossroads, with settlers and traders coming down the Great Road and moving by the same road to Tennessee, or by the Wilderness Road to Kentucky. Some of the log cabins built during those early times have survived and several are now now located within the Abingdon town limits.

The style of log-cabin building found in Washington County differs from that ordinarily found in the log structures of Tazewell County, many of which are preserved at the Crab Orchard Museum. Washington County cabins were built with rafter roof systems, rather than purlins, and the builders used rough-cut limestone for chimneys and foundations - - both indicating a greater availability of skilled carpenters and masons.

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