Massies Mill, Virginia

Massies Mill is an unincorporated community in Nelson County, Virginia, United States. It is located on State Route 56 adjacent to the headwaters of the Tye River. The head of the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway, a now-defunct short line railroad, was once located at Massies Mill.

In August 1969, Massies Mill, then a village of forty homes, was at or very close to ground zero during one of the worst natural disasters to strike the Commonwealth of Virginia in the 20th century as the remnants of Hurricane Camille dumped an unprecedented amount of rain on unsuspecting residents as they slept, resulting in flash floods and mudslides which killed dozens of people throughout the county and surrounding areas.

In 1914, a company was incorporated to build a short line railroad which connected Massies Mill to the Southern Railway, a major trunk line, at Tye River Depot. The Virginia Blue Ridge Railway initially was built to haul chestnut for lumber out of the heavily-timbered Piney River area to local mills until World War I. The chestnut blight wiped out much of the timbered areas. However, the railroad later served several quarries in the area where titanium dioxide and aplite were mined.

The VBR also passed through the communities of Roses Mill, Piney River, Canopy, Lowesville, and Buffalo Mine. It followed the course of the Tye and Piney Rivers for several miles before entering the mountains. The line was abandoned in 1980. Part of the roadbed is being developed as a rails-to-trails project, the Blue Ridge Railway Trail.

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