Buchanan County (VA) (Images of America)

Often referred to as America’s last frontier, Buchanan County, Virginia, was formed in 1858 by Act 156 of the Virginia General Assembly. The young county was named after Pres. James Buchanan, and Grundy, the county seat, was named for U.S. senator Felix Grundy, who later became attorney general in Pres. Martin Van Buren’s cabinet. Images of America: Buchanan County tells the history of a county from the days of the Long Hunters―who settled the area and named its rivers, salt licks, mountains, and valleys―through the Civil War, when the mountainous terrain along the Virginia-Kentucky state line served as a no-man’s-land between the Northern-Southern army, to the coal boom of the 1970s that created instant millionaires. Buchanan County has survived floods, fires, and economic and political demands to emerge anew in the year 2006.