The Watershed Project

Telling New Stories 

The Watershed Project is an exploration of Southwest Virginia, serving as a civic resource and open-access educational tool, helping tell new stories of Southwest Virginia. These stories begin in place.

The Watershed Project roughly corresponds to three river basins, from their headwaters to their confluence with the Ohio and Tennessee rivers: New River-Kanawha, Big Sandy, the Clinch, and the combined Holston-French Broad basins.

Rooted in the foundations of the earth, these stories must take in the broad reach of human habitation, social conflict, and the long effort to build here a thriving democracy for all people.

As the oldest educational institution in Southwest Virginia, Emory & Henry College is part of these stories. The Watershed Project is also a means by which to tell the stories of Emory & Henry, its founding to educate a vital citizenry, its relationship to the slave society and the slave society’s legacy in Southwest Virginia, as well as the ways its people have sought to define and shape a new citizenship of place here.

View All Stories and Resources

Sam Weatherford, featured in the Appalachian Oral History Collection, is from Pocahontas, VA. Sam Weatherford, featured in the Appalachian Oral History Collection, is from Pocahontas, VA.

Nancy Axon, featured in the Appalachian Oral History Collection, is from Poor Valley, VA Nancy Axon, featured in the Appalachian Oral History Collection, is from Poor Valley, VA

How can I get involved? 

The Watershed Project needs your help. The honest telling of all these stories requires many, many voices.

Please take a moment to offer your ideas and suggestions for topics, questions, stories, places, and people to highlight, as we work together to tell new stories of Southwest Virginia.

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