How an ex-coalmining town is turning to ecotourism to rebuild its economy

Dante, a Virginia town, is seeking to transform itself into a hub of ecotourism by nurturing the environment around it, and bring some of the natural beauty back to the community

Eighty-five years ago, Bobbie Gullett was born in the heart of coal country. She grew up in Dante, Virginia, a bustling municipality of 6,000 with a hospital, a hotel, schools, a movie theater, a taxicab stand, a train line. She remembers living in a worker house owned by the Clinchfield Coal Company: Back then, Gullett recalls, while the supervisors lived up on the ridges, coalminers and their families lived in the hollows of the nearby mountain range.

Their squat houses spread along the winding streets of town, which sat in a bowl created by the bumpy, tree-crested hills. In spring and summer, mountain laurel bloomed in the forest and kudzu spread in patches, and in the winter, snow blanketed the town.