Hopewell, Virginia

We've had great experiences visiting some of the nearby smaller&older cities around the region (like Petersburg, Virginia and Wilmington, North Carolina) and checkin' out their old houses and urban areas. We went to Hopewell, Virginia, over the weekend looking for something similar but either it just wasn't there or we missed it entirely...

Downtown Hopewell is about 3 blocks long and has a few "old stuff" shops that range from pretty good to damn strange, a Chinese restaurant, a cafe, and a Dollar General. There were more empty storefronts than occupied spaces. We visited on a fairly nice early-spring Saturday afternoon and there was very little foot-traffic. It was weird and desolate.

Though Hopewell is an old city with much history, we couldn't find much for interesting houses, either. Online research before the trip had brought to our attention that Hopewell has a cluster of 25 or so Sears Houses, but even they were underwhelming. Oh well...