Oysters

Oysters. Urbanna, Virginia. From 1850s to the 1950s, the town's fall and winter economy was driven by oysters. Urbanna's strategic location to fertile Rappahannock River oyster beds encouraged oyster hand-tongers to come to town from September to March. Oystermen from Gloucester and Mathews counties and from Tangier Island sailed and latr motored their log canoes and deadrise boats to stay for the eason. Near this location, J.W. Hurley and Son Seafood had one of the largest oyster shucking and packing houses in the region. Right next door, Boys Hurley built and operated one of the most popular seafood restaurants in the area. The oyster industry waned in the 1950s when MSX, a deadly bacteria, killed millions of oysters throughout the Chesapeake Bay region. The oyster business has rebounded osme in recent years with innovations in farming/growing techniques, but the town's infrastructure that supported a large oyster industry is no longer in place. As a tribute to the oyster and what it meant to the town's economy over the centuries, the community in 1957 founded the annual Urbanna Oyster Festival and the Virginia General Assembly named it the state's official oyster festival in 1988. More than 60,000 people attend the annual event.