Floyd County’s Zion Lutheran Cemetery and Church is a landmark to the religious history of Southwest Virginia and to the enduring cultural traditions of German pioneers who moved into the region at the end of the 18th century. Formed in 1813 to minister to the settlers north of the town of Floyd, the Zion congregation occupied three successive buildings before the present structure was erected in 1898. The pews of the current Zion Lutheran Church were saved from the 1861 third meeting house. A large cemetery to the rear of the building holds a rich collection of 19th-century funerary art, including a number of distinctive German-style markers carved by local artisans. The German stones have rectangular-shouldered bodies with rounded or pointed heads. Some of the late 19th-century German stones are conical. The oldest inscribed stone in the group is dated 1817.
[VLR Listed Only]
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
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia