The modified Queen Anne-style June Tolliver House, typical of Southwest Virginia’s late-19th-century boom architecture, was the residence of June Morris during the time of her schooling at the Wise County town of Big Stone Gap. She was the local woman after whom the writer John Fox, Jr., patterned June Tolliver, heroine of his novel The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, published in 1908. In the book, this sheltered daughter of a local family falls in love with a mining engineer. Portraying the cultural clash that came with the region’s mining boom, the book was one of the most popular of its time. The June Tolliver House is preserved as a literary landmark, with the novel that made it famous reenacted here seasonally as an outdoor drama.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark