The Derby Historic District is in a coal company town in Wise County, built along the narrow bottomland of Preacher Creek four miles north of the corporate headquarters and supply centers at Appalachia and Big Stone Gap. The lowest section, actually the upper part of the now-vanished adjacent colliery known as Arno, consists of a row of eight frame, one-story, four-bay, single-family dwellings on the south side of the road and two similar houses on the north. These houses have two central doors flanked by original six-over-six sash windows, tile foundation, central chimney, and gabled asphalt shingle roofs. The Derby Historic District’s  residential and institutional buildings primarily date to the period from 1922 to 1952. They were carefully designed and constructed to attract and retain coal workers, using unusual and innovative building forms and materials.