Franklin County is the eastern gateway to The Crooked Road, a 265-mile journey through Southwest Virginia's musical heritage in the Appalachian Mountains. Long a cultural crossroads, the county fostered exchanges between black and white musicians whose shared ideas shaped music still sustained through frequent jam sessions and concerts. Rocky Mount's Community and Hospitality Center connects visitors with those musical traditions as well as historic sites and outdoor recreation. The county includes the farmstead, now a National Monument, where Booker T. Washington was born enslaved, preserves part of the colonial wagon road to Carolina and the West, and is home to Ferrum College's Blue Ridge Institute and Farm Museum, dedicated to Virginia's craft and music traditions. Smith Mountain Lake, Bald Knob, and local hiking trails and blueways also showcase the natural beauty of the Blue Ridge. Across The Crooked Road, Southwest Virginia's historically isolated communities preserved old time mountain music, bluegrass, and gospel by passing them down through musical families, and today festivals, concerts, radio shows, jam sessions, museums, venues, musicians, and instrument makers continue that legacy.