Appomattox County isn’t dead. On the contrary, it’s a rare growth hotspot in Southside.

Much like Robert E. Lee before her, a defeated Amanda Chase is leaving the Richmond area and headed to Appomattox to make another stand.

This move may work out better for the former Republican state senator from Chesterfield County than it did for Lee. Chase has her eye on the state Senate seat that John McGuire will vacate if — more likely when — he wins the 5 ^th District congressional seat this fall.

Chase may well face competition for the nomination. When McGuire won the nomination last year, there were three other contenders. That’s a district so Republican that Democrats didn’t even have a candidate, so I can imagine that Republican interest in what amounts to a free pass to the General Assembly would be high. Chase’s interest may prompt others to begin their campaigns earlier than they had otherwise intended.

All that’s for another day, though. What I’m curious about is what Chase told the Richmond Times-Dispatch when she confirmed her impending move to Appomattox County. She said she wanted to focus on economic development in the district — always a good thing to say in rural areas. However, she then went on to say: “The biggest building in Appomattox is the Thomasville furniture plant; it’s just dead and I’d like to do something about that.”

Now, maybe Chase just meant that particular building, but still, the phrase “it’s just dead” clanked in my ear with the same off-key sound as when that one Richmond journalist recently referred to “whatever the hell is west of Roanoke.” Goodness knows, almost any rural area in Virginia is in need of more economic growth; but for a former legislator from a suburban county, now Virginia’s fastest-growing locality, to show up in a rural county and proclaim “it’s just dead,” even if she just means a specific building, seems a bit impolitic. (I’m reminded of when Wilbur Ross, who was secretary of commerce under Donald Trump, visited Roanoke and met with a group of business leaders. He remarked unfavorably about how he saw “quite a few empty storefronts, so there’s obviously [a] lot more repair that’s needed.” I saw those business leaders cringe. Yes, Roanoke has empty storefronts downtown, but you don’t show up and talk about them. What those business leaders saw was not a downtown with empty storefronts, but a downtown that’s been reinventing itself since a near-collapse in the 1970s — a case of whether the storefronts are half full or half empty.)

In the case of Appomattox County, yes, the Thomasville furniture plant in the town of Appomattox is no more. Once it employed 1,200 people. By the time it finally closed in 2011, the workforce was down to just 200. Appomattox County is a classic example of a small Southern farm-and-factory community that’s undergoing a forced transition to a new economy. There have been some bitter moments along the way. The collapse of the furniture industry was one of those. Then in 2014, Gov. Terry McAuliffe grandly announced that a Chinese company intended to open an auto parts factory in the old Thomasville plant. McAuliffe doled out $1.4 million from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund to seal the deal. Neither the company, nor the state’s money, was ever seen again — a scandal that prompted a shake-up in how the state goes about vetting companies involved in economic development deals.

However, the building is not “dead.” In 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced that Virginia MetalFab, a metal fabrication company, planned to invest $9 million to set up operations in the facility and would create 130 jobs over the next three years. (As of last report, employment stood at 85.) A trade journal, The Fabricator, recently featured the firm in an article headlined “How one company is reshaping a Virginia community.” Now, 85 jobs or 130 jobs is obviously not the same as 1,200, but there are few companies out there creating 1,200 positions in one fell swoop. Economic transitions are often agonizingly slow, but it’s clear that a transition in Appomattox is underway, and it can’t be measured by one building, as prominent as it might be.

That transition may not be readily apparent to someone driving through the county, but it does show up in other ways. Here are some of them:

Employment in Appomattox County is growing

There are two ways to measure jobs: the number of jobs in the county, and the number of people in the county who are employed. The difference: Some people may live in Appomattox County and work outside the county. Ultimately, jobs in the county are more valuable because those employers can be taxed.

Let’s look at both sets of numbers. The number of jobs in Appomattox County peaked in 1992 at 4,112, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics . A decade ago (this would have been after the Thomasville plant closed), there were 2,945 jobs in the county, according to the BLS . The most recent figures from BLS put the number of jobs in Appomattox County at 3,590. This stands in contrast to some other counties in Southside. Next door in Buckingham County, the number of jobs has declined slightly over a decade’s time. In Charlotte County, the number of jobs is about the same. Bottom line: Employment in Appomattox County is not what it was, but it is growing, so the trend line is at least headed in the right direction.

When we look at the number of people in Appomattox County who have jobs, we get a very different picture.

The Federal Reserve shows employment going back to 1990. (See chart above). By that measure, the number of employed people in Appomattox County hit a low in 1999 at 5,232. Note that this is before Thomasville closed for good, but matches the collapse of furniture and textiles nationally. That’s also when communities such as Danville and Martinsville saw massive job losses. All these places have been working on reinventing themselves over the past quarter-century. Note, too, that employment in Appomattox County has rebounded since then and the 2011 closing of what remained of the Thomasville plant doesn’t even show up as a blip on the chart. The number of employed people in Appomattox County peaked in 2019 at 7,002, fell to 6,640 during the pandemic year of 2020 and is now back up to 6,982. That means two things: Employment in Appomattox County has yet to recover from the pandemic. However, that most recent employment figure is the second-highest on record for the county.

When we compare the two sets of numbers — number of jobs in the county, number of people in the county who are employed — what we see is that a growing number of people in Appomattox County are living in the county but working outside the county. In 1992, 67% of people in Appomattox worked in the county. Now that figure is down to 51.4%. In short, Appomattox is becoming more of a commuter county. That’s not necessarily a good thing, of course, for the tax reasons cited above. However, the fact that a) the number of jobs in the county is growing again, and b) the number of people in the county who are employed is at a record high, are both welcome economic trends. Appomattox is simply changing, and that transition syncs up with the county’s population data:

Appomattox County is the fastest-growing locality west of Richmond and south of Interstate 64

Very few localities in that part of the state are gaining population at all, but Appomattox County is. In the 2020 census, which covered the previous decade, it was the second-fastest growing locality west of Richmond and south of I-64. Bedford County saw its population grow by 15.7%, and Appomattox County grew by 7.65%. Earlier this year, the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia released its annual population estimates. For the period from 2020 to 2023, Appomattox County showed the fastest-population growth in that part west of Richmond and south of I-64. Its population during that time grew by 3.8%, a growth rate that puts it ahead of some of the localities around Richmond (specifically, Hanover County and Henrico County).

Ronald Reagan was fond of saying that people vote with their feet, so it’s axiomatic that if a community’s population is growing, something in the economy is prompting that. Let’s take a closer look.

Appomattox County is growing primarily because more people are moving in than moving out

For a long time, rural counties saw more people moving out than moving in. That’s now changed, and most rural counties in Virginia are seeing more people move in than move out. Overall, though, Virginia is experiencing net out-migration, but that’s because of large population losses in Fairfax County and parts of Hampton Roads . Appomattox County is among those rural localities that are seeing net in-migration, but what makes it stand out is the pace of that net in-migration: 95.4% of the county’s population growth has come from net in-migration. When Chase completes her move to Appomattox County, she won’t be alone.

The actual numbers are small because Appomattox County (population 16,728) is small but, in percentage terms, the impact is big. That net in-migration during the past three years accounts for 3.4% of the population. That’s not the same level as the county that Chase is departing — in Chesterfield County, the state’s new growth hotspot — newcomers account for 5.1% of the population. However, it is high compared to nearby jurisdictions. In Bedford County, which has been the biggest population driver in this part of the state, newcomers over the past three years account for 2.6% of the population. For what it’s worth, data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that the people moving into Appomattox County generally make more money than the people moving out. The income differential between the two sets of movers isn’t that big, so I’m not sure I’d read a lot into that, but there is a consistent gap over the past two decades.

However, there’s an even more interesting aspect to population growth in Appomattox County.

Appomattox County is one of the few rural localities where births outnumber deaths

Because of declining birth rates generally, plus an aging population, most places in Virginia are seeing more deaths than births. Demographers, in their clinical way, refer to this as “natural decrease.” Put another way, most parts of Virginia are losing population naturally; they’re only gaining population through people moving in.

Appomattox County is one of the few rural exceptions to this — and the only rural exception once you get outside the state’s high-growth areas. (Virginia’s population growth is no longer limited to the urban crescent, so that moniker is of limited use. A lot of the growth is taking place in the Shenandoah Valley, the Charlottesville-Albemarle County area and the Piedmont area north of I-64. If you drew a diagonal line from Augusta County to Suffolk, that would do a better job of separating the high-growth areas from the low-growth or no-growth ones.)

Again, if we look west of Richmond, and south of I-64, only two localities record more births than deaths: Appomattox County and Lynchburg.

Lynchburg shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s got one of the youngest median ages in the state, a function of having so many colleges (and graduates who stay in the Hill City). Appomattox County is the unusual one, especially given its relatively high median age of 43.1 years, higher than the state figure of 38.7. However, compared to other rural counties in Virginia, Appomattox County has an age pyramid that’s relatively evenly distributed.

Contrast that with, say, Buckingham County next door:

I especially call your attention to how Appomattox County has a lot more kids, on a percentage basis, than Buckingham does. Let’s look closer.

Appomattox County is one of the few places in Virginia that’s seeing an increase in school enrollment

From 2010 to 2019, Appomattox County, like many rural areas, saw the number of kids decline. School enrollment peaked in the county in 2003-4 at 2,327 and then declined to a low of 2,221 in 2018-19.

However, since then, school enrollment has been growing again and for the most recent school year was up to 2,372 — its highest figure since the current database of Virginia Department of Education data began two decades ago. Furthermore, recent school enrollment projections from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia forecast continued enrollment growth in Appomattox County.

All these figures fit together — the population growth we’re seeing in Appomattox County appears to be exurban growth spilling out of Lynchburg, bringing young adults who are now having children.

There’s another way to measure growth in Appomattox County, though.

The economy in Appomattox County is growing faster than Virginia’s economy overall

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis computes the gross domestic product for each county and city in Virginia, which lets us measure economic growth at the local level. In 2020, the pandemic year, the county’s GDP shrunk by -1.8%, a bigger decline than the state’s overall shrinkage of -1.3%. However, in 2021, the Appomattox County economy rebounded with 10.2% growth, nearly double the state’s average. In 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available, its growth slowed to 3.9% — which was still faster than the state’s overall growth of 2.5%.

For 2022, that means Appomattox County ranked 24 ^th out of 105 communities in Virginia. (The state has more cities and counties than that but the BEA combines some of them for statistical purposes.) That means Appomattox County ranked in the top quarter of Virginia communities for economic growth.

By this measure, Appomattox County stands out as an economic growth hotspot in Southside. Cumberland County ranks higher — third-highest in the state, with an economic growth rate of 12.2% in 2022 — but others in Southside rank much lower. Campbell County (combined with Lychburg by the BEA) ranked 70 at 0.3%, Prince Edward County next door ranked 77 with negative growth of -0.1%, Buckingham ranked 93 with -2.3%.

For what it’s worth, Chase’s home in Chesterfield County came in 49 ^th at 1.9% economic growth.

Now, I don’t want to be one of those people who points to some impersonal statistics and says “see, everything’s fine.” The median household income in Appomattox County is $43,750, which is about two-thirds of what it is in the Lynchburg area, and about half of the statewide figure of $87,249.

Appomattox County, like most rural areas, could use more life — but it’s certainly not dead. In fact, given the trends I’ve just cited, perhaps it ought to be looked to as a model of a rural community that’s slowly recreating itself.

* * *

P.S.: This doesn’t fit into an economic analysis but Appomattox County is also home to Wolfbane Productions , one of the most exciting theater companies in the state. Appomattox is not a place where you’d expect to find professional theater, yet there it is — more evidence of how rural Virginia is a more complicated place than people think. Wolfbane’s next show is “Evil Dead: The Musical,” which runs Aug. 1-18.

In this week’s West of the Capital:

I write a weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, that goes out every Friday at 3 p.m. Here’s what’s in this week’s edition:

• A missed opportunity for Senate Republican candidate Hung Cao.
• How an independent candidate for city council in Lynchburg could hold the key to that city’s balance of power.
• Chris Faraldi, whose primary victory for Lynchburg City Council is being challenged in court, is now selling lawsuit-themed merch on his campaign website.
• Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, brings congressional delegation to Tazewell County to talk energy and the environment.
• The post-political career of former state Sen. Charles Hawkins, R-Pittsylvania County.

You can sign up for that or any of our other free newsletters here:

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