This morning as you are leaving the South Boston area, we’ll route you to Bob Cage’s Sculpture Farm which illustrates there are many ways for people who once made their living in tobacco to change professions. He is one of the more unusual stories. This World Champion Tobacco Auctioneer is now a sculptor, painter and champion tennis player. In addition to pieces scattered about South Boston, the Bob Cage Sculpture Farm is an open field with, among other things, sculptured llamas, burros, and goats grazing in the field. He has also restored a very historic home in Halifax County.

At that point, you are deep in the tobacco fields that still produce in southern Halifax County and it’s time for a driving tour of this wonderful landscape. We’ll specifically route you by farms where you can see the product in some stage of development and the tobacco barns traditionally used to cure the leaf.

While you’re on the driving tour, you can enjoy walking the first completed segment of the Tobacco Heritage Trail. This newly developed Rails-to-Trails project in southern Virginia will ultimately be built on 100 miles of abandoned railroad corridor throughout the counties in the region. Serving as a link to nature for its users, the off-road trail is limited to pedestrians, hikers, bicycles, and horseback riding. Portions will also be accessible to those with mobility limitations

From there, it’s a short drive to Danville where the 40-square block Tobacco Warehouse and Residential District in the heart of the city was once the economic wellspring of the town’s industry. Home to tobacco warehouses and factories, shops and homes of the working class residents, in all 585 buildings that were part of Danville’s tobacco enterprise constructed between 1870 and 1910 still stand adjacent to approximately 450 workers homes that were constructed between 1880 and 1930.

Martinsville, you last stop of the day was established in 1791. It has a long and colorful history of evolution through an economy based almost exclusively on the growing of tobacco, to one of tobacco manufacturing, furniture manufacturing and ultimately textile manufacturing. As tobacco manufacturers moved out, furniture factories took their place. The first textile manufacturers moved into buildings previously occupied by tobacco manufacturers. In 1995 Martinsville decided to blend all of the historic architecture into a Virginia Main Street program to foster the revitalization of the downtown community. Today, the Martinsville Uptown Revitalization Association has given new life to over 70 buildings

Choice of Accommodations for night three:

Best Western Martinsville: Stay at this 95-room well-maintained property with complimentary breakfast, wireless internet and all the other customary amenities you expect from Best Western.
Clubhouse Bed and Breakfast: Experience this historic property originally built as the Marshall Field Clubhouse, later named the Fieldcrest Lodge after the textile company. The relaxed wooded setting lets you get out into the countryside.