NEW LEAF: NATIVE SONS INSTILL ART AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN A PITT COUNTY TOWN BUILT ON TOBACCO.

• Author: Mims, Bryan
• Position: TOWN SQUARE: Farmville

The name of the town--Farmville --sounds so, well, country. A mud-on-the-boots, tractors-on-the-road kind of place, you might reckon. Or maybe it conjures memories of that once-popular farm simulation game on Facebook called "Farm Ville."

But what's in a name doesn't always reflect what's on Main. The town of roughly 4,700 people a dozen miles west of Greenville has espresso and pinot grigio; loft apartments and a taproom; boutique fashion and spa treatments; an art gallery and a dance studio. A vodka distillery and vintage toy store are on the horizon. The Popinjay Salon, Biscuit and the Bean Cafe, and The Frivolous Fox, a shop selling jewelry, artwork, candles and more, are within an easy walk from the local Piggly Wiggly.

Farmville is also where 22-year-old Anna Newsome, who spent most of her childhood an hour outside New York City, this year became director of the Farmville Chamber of Commerce. She succeeds Judy Gidley, who retired after five years leading the chamber, boosting its membership and launching or reinstating various community events. Newsome, an East Carolina University graduate with a degree in hospitality management, moved to North Carolina from New Jersey before her senior year in high school.

"I think it's just a unique town," she says of Farmville. "All the storefronts and businesses are so eclectic. I do intend to stay for a good amount of time to help Farmville grow and make it better than what it is now."

The name of the town does stem from the area's farm-to-market heritage, which trails back to Colonial times. After its incorporation in February 1872, Farmville grew into a small commercial center to support the flourishing bright-leaf tobacco market.

For generations, tobacco lit up Farmville with cash. In 1907, Albert Coy Monk began buying leaves and shipping them in hogshead barrels from the town's railroad station. A.C. Monk and Co., later known as Dibrell and Alliance One International, blossomed into one of the world's largest dealers and exporters of flue-cured tobacco and stood as Farmville's biggest employer through most of the 20th century. Grand old houses, largely built on tobacco money, lord over Church Street, their front doors framed by white columns and their sprawling lawns bounded by wrought iron or white picket fences.

The town was dealt a blow in November when the business, now based in Morrisville and called Pyxus International, said it would cease tobacco-processing operations in Farmville...