The story below is from our May/June 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
When many think of Rocky Mount, it’s most often in connection with a show at the popular and relatively new Harvester Performance Center. But there’s a good bit more than that to the tiny seat of government for Franklin County.
If you want to date Rocky Mount’s resurgence to the opening of the Harvester Performance Center in 2014, you won’t get a lot of argument. Fact is, though, you’re missing the real Rocky Mount, the one that combines the past, present and future into a fascinating ball of the artistic, the commercial and tourism that raises eyebrows among the uninitiated.
The Harvester, of course, is the elephant in the room, featuring some of the truly interesting musical aggregations in the country, everything from Glenn Miller to Buddy Guy, Keb’ Mo’ to Blue Oyster Cult, Delbert McClinton to Doyle Lawson, Kenny G to the Little River Band, Ricky Skaggs to Gaelic Storm, B.J. Thomas to Rhonda Vincent, 150 shows a year, 460 seats at a time.
Last year, the Harvester saw $1.6 million “move through its doors,” according to Rocky Mount Town Manager James Irvin. Its shows drew from 50 fans to a number of full houses and netted $31,000 for the year. Rocky Mount “carries the books, the brick and mortar and we provide management,” for The Harvester, says Irvin. “Otherwise, it’s self-sustaining.”
Tourism Director David Rotenizer says The Harvester is “a game-changer,” making Rocky Mount “an easier sell.”
It is also a business magnet. Dulcie Hankins opened Wood Grains, a hand-made furniture store, directly across the street from the Harvester in 2016 when she “couldn’t take any more” of working for the federal government. She combines the works of 36 local furniture makers with those of 100 Amish builders to stock her store and says, “The Harvester was absolutely a help” in her prosperous business.
“People come in before and after performances and even the artists visit us,” she says. The Harvester “has a tremendous impact. Most of us [downtown] have seen an increase of business. … Some [businesses] wouldn’t exist without The Harvester.”
Hankins bought the building from a couple of old friends “I’ve known since I was born” and sees that “a lot of people come for shows and visit while they’re here. It’s a good little hub.”
Matt Hankins, CEO of the Harvester and Rocky Mount’s assistant town manager and Dulcie’s husband, says, “Yes, the Harvester plays a vital and central role in the revitalization of downtown.
“When the Harvester opened, the town had over 10 vacant downtown storefronts. Most of those have been filled, and the new ones that have been created have typically been created because of other business opportunities elsewhere or significantly appreciated property values, helped in part by the tens of thousands of people the Harvester brings downtown every year.
“Would downtown be different if not for the Harvester? Definitely. I can’t say how, but I’m willing to bet that without this huge investment of public dollars, commitment and effort that – like most traditional downtowns in rural Virginia and rural America – we would struggle to attract businesses and shoppers downtown.”
Rocky Mount, which has expanded over the years to 6.9 square miles and was founded in 1786, has a downtown and an uptown, both thriving with local retail (like the old-fashioned Angle Hardware, across the street from the heavily-used Franklin County Library and a block away from Kylee Robinson’s Whole Bean Coffehouse). Rotenizer says the library “is not your daddy’s library. Its special programming and interactive programming are out of the box … You have to have relevance and the library does that.”
Whole Bean opened three years ago and has done well, but it appears to be hitting a peak: January 2019 was its highest grossing month ever and the first Friday in February set a single day record, Robinson says. “I think Rocky Mount was just ready for a coffee shop,” she says. “We have great lunch crowds because we aren’t fast food and we work hard at customer service.” Vegans—like Rocky Mount Assistant Town Manager Matt Hankins—can eat well at Whole Bean and so can just about anybody else.
“There are a lot of confines in operating a coffee shop in a small town,” says Robinson, “but we’re getting high school kids, parents and children” and the work-a-day crowd. She has discovered that it’s important “to know the town” and its interests and tastes when opening a business.
The development philosophy in Rocky Mount, says Irvin, isn’t much different from that of Asheville, Greensboro or Roanoke. With retail going online, “we try to repurpose downtown retail” and that’s often “a tough nut. We all end up with retail capacity that is no longer relevant. Businesses [often] want the new, so who wants the three-story [empty] building?”
That’s where the new emphasis on arts and culture plays its hand. Opportunities, says Irvin, can be “funky and unique.” But the businesses are coming. Twin Creeks Distillery of Martinsville, for example, is moving its brewing production to Ferrum and setting up a tasting room in the Jones Building next door to The Harvester, even as one spots “Virginia is for Moonshiners” bumper stickers in town. Rocky Mount and Franklin County used to cringe at the mention of their moonshine past, but now they celebrate the illegal booze period.
Rocky Mount’s small business, says Librarian Christine Arena, “add vitality in a way only mom-and-pop businesses can.”
The colorful Grainery, which has housed artisan organizations in the past, was recently sold and is looking for a new purpose. Its fancy exterior has “kicked off the desire for murals downtown,” says Hankins. “There are some good public spaces for art.”
Various creative “roads” are passing through Rocky Mount, beginning with the Crooked Road, which emphasizes Virginia’s old-time musical heritage and running through the White Lightning Artisan Trail, Round the Mountain Artisan Network and even the Pigg River Blueway, host of the annual Pigg River Ramble (for canoes and kayaks). The Pigg is one of four Franklin County rivers and two large lakes (Smith Mountain and Philpott), which have become a heavy concentration for those seeking water recreation.
David Rotenizer notes that Rocky Mount has been a “leader in Virginia’s Main Street Program” with its street design and regional farmers market. Its Come Home Franklin County Christmas is a “significant event.”
The town is among those trying to figure out how to establish a hiking trail up to Bald Knob Natural Preserve, from which it got its name, one of two natural preserves in Rocky Mount.
Local restaurants are getting superb reviews online and that’s even after you consider the Dairy Queen hold on the area. Legend is that Franklin County has the largest number of Dairy Queens in the U.S. per capita at five. Brianna Vannoy, 19, serves customers at one of two Rocky Mount DQs and says, without hesitation, “I like living here.”
Some of those restaurants include Ippy’s, which is marking its 100th anniversary, and Buddy’s Barbecue (a 5-star rated shop), The Hub, BSides, the Kupkakery, Delight Donuts, two Chinese restaurants, a pizza parlor and two Mexican restaurants.
Rocky Mount’s “nighttime population” is just under 5,000, says Assistant Town Manager Hankins, “but it becomes 20,000 to 25,000 during the day” when people who work in the town and go to school there show up. The county’s only high school is in town and there are some big factories and other businesses: Ronile, PlyGem (formerly M&W Manufacturing), Trinity Plastics, Empire Foods, Home Town Ice, Yellow Wood Lumber, Ferguson Land and Lumber Mill, Jammin’ Apparel, Carilion, the heavily-used YMCA, county government and the high-performance auto engine customizer Better Built Performance.
Rocky Mount is not—and likely won’t be—in a population growth mode anytime soon, says Irvin, “because we’re geographically bound. But we serve those who are here with clean streets and good parks [and municipal services] that give people a reason to live and play here. In the 1990s, we struggled with what we were.” But that has changed.
It is now a gateway. To far more than The Harvester.
... for more from our May/June 2019 issue, Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!