When the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad arrived in the mid-nineteenth century, Meadowview began to grow, prospering further when the Norfolk and Western built a depot there in 1883. By the early 1900s Meadowview was a railroad town with residents working for the railroad, keeping boardinghouses for drummers, and opening businesses shipping area produce, lumber, or livestock. When the decline of passenger and freight service caused the depot to close in the 1960s, the town's center suffered, but that is now being reversed. The depot, a board-and-batten Italianate structure, is still the centerpiece of the square. Around it were grouped two- and three-story frame stores constructed between 1888 and 1947. Although only one row of four buildings remains, they have undergone gentrification and are painted in pastel colors. The old dusty square has been transformed into a neatly landscaped and blacktopped parking lot.