The town and county are noted for the original red brick 1908 Courthouse at the corner of Main Street (Virginia Route 58) and Independence Avenue (US 21), site of the annual July 4th Celebration and autumn Mountain Foliage Festival.

[7] Town park is home to the Independence Farmers Market, which opens weekly from May–October and online year round.

The market uses a timber-frame, white oak,[8] pavilion completed in 2021 in collaboration with the Timber Framers Guild.

[7] The Brookside Farm and Mill and the original Grayson County Courthouse are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[11] The design features corbeled brackets and a Flemish gable between octagonal corner towers with roof element.

[11] To safely store county documents — birth, marriage, property, and death records — the building included a state-mandated fireproof vault.

A local businessman, Dan Doyle Baldwin (1933-1994, CEO of Nautilus Fitness) purchased and restored the building, in turn donating it on July 4, 1986 to Grayson County and forming the Historic 1908 Courthouse Foundation.

The Grayson Crossroads Museum is now located on the first floor in what was the Clerk's Vault Room and the building accommodates special events and community activities.

From the 1970s[13] to the 1990s, Independence was home to the Nautilus Fitness manufacturing plant and warehouse at a 56 acre site 709 Powerhouse Road, reaching a peak of 600 employees in 1984.