Massies Mill, Virginia

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,[1] 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.

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 hurricane had come ashore on the Gulf Coast near the mouth of the Mississippi River as a Category 5 storm, one of only 3 to strike the US mainland during the 20th century.

The rainfall was so heavy there were reports of birds drowning in trees and of survivors who had to cup their hands around mouth and nose in order to breathe through such a deluge.