Big Stone Gap, Virginia

Nickelsville, tucked into Scott County in far southwest Virginia, sounds like it ought to come with a mining headframe and a vein of shiny metal. Nickel, the element, the stuff in your pocket change. Reasonable guess. Wrong guess. There's no nickel mine here and never was. The town carries a family name. James Nickels, Senior, settled this land with his wife Jane back in eighteen fourteen, and the place grew up around the Nickels clan. A brother, Walter Nickels, even ran the early post office. For a long stretch it was spelled Nickolsville, until a nineteen thirty-eight act of the Virginia assembly cleaned it up to the spelling we use now. So the metal in the name is pure coincidence. It's just a family that put down roots and never left.