25v) half a mile south of Nace, Virginia ..."[4] The town also had an iron mine nearby.

Houston Mine was a property of Tredegar Iron Works of Richmond, at one time one of the largest manufacturing facilities in the South.

The company provided ordnance to the Confederacy and helped further the statewide railroad building boom after the Civil War.

An affiliated business of the mine was Crozier Iron & Steel in Roanoke, which provided materials for the Norfolk and Western Railway in its early days during the late 19th century.

[6] The town had a railway station at milepost 225 for the Shenandoah Valley Railroad and had a US Post Office from 1883 to 1964.