Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Buchanan, VA

Buchanan is an incorporated town in Botetourt County, Virginia — not Buchanan County, which lies far to the southwest — set on the James River where the Blue Ridge and Ridge-and-Valley mountain ranges nearly meet.

The town of Buchanan was established in 1811 and incorporated in 1832, and it took its name from colonist John Buchanan, who built Fort Fauquier on the James River just south of town.

Across the river, the town of Pattonsburg had been incorporated in 1788 and named for Colonel James Patton; the two communities merged in 1882 to form the present town of Buchanan.

Buchanan was the western terminus of the James River and Kanawha Canal, which reached the town in 1851 and linked it by water to Richmond; the canal was the longest built in the South.

The canal era turned Buchanan into a busy riverside port of warehouses, hotels, and docks, and the Buchanan Historic District preserving that era is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Buchanan's pedestrian swinging bridge over the James River, built in 1938, stands on stone piers constructed in 1851 for an earlier covered bridge.

The 2020 census counted 1,196 people in Buchanan, and the town is part of the Roanoke metropolitan area.

Buchanan is known as the "Gateway to the Shenandoah Valley," sitting where U.S. Route 11 follows the James River northeast out of the Roanoke region.

The James River itself begins in Botetourt County, at the meeting of the Cowpasture and Jackson rivers, and flows through Buchanan on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.

The historic Buchanan Theatre is among the town's properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the James River at Buchanan is a popular spot for tubing, kayaking, and fishing.