Chap. 327.—An ACT to incorporate the town of Pennington Gap, in the county of
Lee. °

Approved March 28, 1902.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That the town
of Pennington Gap, in the county of Lee, as the same has been hereto-
fore laid off into streets, alleys, and squares, be, and the same is hereby,
made a town corporate by the name of Pennington Gap, and by that
Name may sue and be sued, and have and exercise all the powers con-
ferred on towns of less than five thousand inhabitants by the laws of Vir-
ginia now in force, so far as the same are not inconsistent with the pro-
visions of this act.

2. The limits of said town shall be as follows: Beginning in the middle
of Cane creek, at a point where Miss Maggie Burk’s east line crosses said
creek; thence down and with the meanders of said creek to the western
line of the Baptist college lot; thence with the west and south lines of
said lot to the southeastern corner of the same; thence a straight line to
a spring east of the old G. W. Russell dwelling house; thence a straight
line to the old house in which Job Poteet now lives; thence with the
west line of an old road to the southern dower line of Annie Zion; thence
westward with said Annie Zion’s line and the line of the Pennington’s
Gap Improvement Company to the southeast corner of the lands of
M. L. Slemp; thence with said Slemp’s southern line to the east line of
said Maggie Burk’s land; thence southward with her lines to the begin-
ning.

3. The government of said town shall be vested in a mayor and five
councilmen, one of which councilmen shall be appointed and designated
by a majority of the other councilmen as town clerk; and the first election
under this charter for mayor and councilmen shall be held on Tuesday
after the first Monday in November, nineteen hundred and threc, and
semi-annually thereafter on the Tuesday after the first Monday in
November. Such election shall be held in said town at such place as shall
be designated by the town council, and conducted under the supervision
of three commissioners appointed by the mayor for the purpose. Within
two days after any election has been held under this act, the commis-
sioners who conducted said election shall certify the names of the persons
voted for and elected to the council of said town, which certificate shall
be entered among the records of said town.

4. The persons to be elected under the provisions of this act shall be
qualified voters of Lee county, and residents for thirty days of said town ;
and it shall be their duty on or before the first day of January next after
their election to take and subscribe the oaths prescribed by law to be
taken by county and district officers before a justice of the peace or
notary public for Lee county, which oaths shall be filed with the mayor
of said town; and they shall enter upon the discharge of the duties of
their respective offices on the first day of January next after their eclec-
tion, and hold their offices for a term of two years, and until their suc-
cessors are elected or appointed and qualified.

5. Jesse A. Tubbs is hereby appointed mayor of said town; W. K.
Hopkins, W. G. Burgin, Acel John, John M. Howard, and R. L. Wood
are hereby appointed councilmen thereof, and the said persons shall act
as mayor and councilmen, and shall have and exercise all the powers
hereinafter granted to said officers, shall continue in office until the first
day of January, nineteen hundred and four, and thereafter until their
successors shall be elected and qualify according to law, a majority of
whom shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.

6. In all elections for officers of this corporation all persons who are
by the laws of this State entitled to vote for members of the general
assembly, and who shall have resided in said town for three months next
preceding the day of election to be held, shall be entitled to vote.

7. When, from any cause, a vacancy may occur in the office of mayor
or councilmen, the town council, by a majority of such as remain, may fill
such vacancy from the citizens of said town eligible to the office under
this act.

8. The mayor and councilmen shall constitute the council of said
town, a majority of whom shall constitute a quorum to transact business,
and all the corporate powers of said town shall be exercised by said
council under its authority, except when otherwise provided by law. The
mayor shall be president of said council, and shall have all the rights,
powers, and privileges such office confers under the general laws govern-
ing towns within this State, and shall be invested with all powers of a
justice of the peace in criminal and civil cases within the limits of said
town and one mile beyond said limits. He shall have power to render
judgments and issue executions in all matters wherein he has authority
vested in him under this act; and in case of trial and conviction of any
person for the violation of any provision of this act, or any ordinance,
by-law, or regulation of said town, or any crime against the laws of this
State wherein the punishment is by fine, and the fine be not paid imme-
diately, together with all costs, it shall be lawful to require such offender
so convicted to work out all costs, fines, and jail fees on the streets, side-
walks, or other public works of said town at the rate of fifty cents per
day. In case of the death, sickness, absence, refusal, or inability of the
mayor at any time to act as such, the council shall designate some one
of its members to act in the place of such mayor, and who shall have all
the powers conferred upon the mayor by this charter.

9. The town council shall cause to be kept by the clerk of said town
in a journal accurate record of all its proceedings, which shall be open
to the inspection of the citizens of said town. The clerk shall attend all
meetings of the council, keep a journal of its proceedings, have charge
of and preserve the records of the town, and perform such other duties
as the town council may prescribe.

10. The council shall have the power to elect a treasurer, sergeant, and
any other officers they may deem necessary for said town; to regulate
their duties, prescribe their compensation, remove them from office, and
require bonds, with approved security, for the faithful performance of
their respective duties. The council shall also have the power to pass all
necessary by-laws and ordinances for the government of said town, so
that the same be not in conflict with the constitution and laws of this
State and the constitution and laws of the United States; to lay off
streets, walks, and alleys; to alter or change the same; to keep the same
in order, and for which purposes shall have the same power and jurisdic-
tion for condemning lands for streets, alleys, and sidewalks as the county
court has for condemning lands for roads in said county (and Joslyn
and Morgan and West Railroad avenues, and Cross, Ford, and Doris
streets, as now laid off, used, and graded, be, and are hereby, declared
and made public highways) ; to prevent riding and driving horses and
other animals at an improper speed along the roads and streets of said
town; to prevent riding, driving, or leading horses or other animals
across or along any sidewalk; to prevent the erection of unsightly, un-
substantial, and unsafe houses, and unsafe flues and chimneys to build-
ings in said town, and to require the owner or occupier of houses in said
town to erect safe flues or chimneys to their houses; to lease, acquire, ar
erect water works for said town, and to require all persons getting or
using water from the same to pay a license therefor; to prevent vice and
immorality; to preserve peace and order; to quell disturbances and dis-
orderly conduct and assemblages; to suppress houses of ill-fame and
gambling; to prevent engaging in any sport or employment in said town
dangerous or annoying to the citizens thereof; to punish lewdness or im-
moral conduct in said town; to make regulations in reference to con-
tagious diseases; to abate nuisances, and to punish all violations of the
ordinances and by-laws of said town by fine or imprisonment, or both.

11. The said town council shall have the power and authority to have
sidewalks, curbings, and footways along any street or alley within said
town of such width as they may prescribe, properly paved or otherwise
made, improved, or repaired and altered whenever they may think fit,
at the cost and expense of the owner or owncrs of the lots of land along
the front or side of which such footways, sidewalks, or other improve-
ments extend, and to levy and collect for that purpose a special tax on
each of such lots or pieces of land proportioned to the number of feet of
the same fronting on such pavement or other improvement, which special
tax shall be collected by the treasurer or collecting officer of said town
as other taxes on real estate within the said town are herein directed to
be collected: provided, however, that the owner or occupier of any lot or
parcel of land extending from one street to another shall not, within
three years from the passage of this act, be required to pay a special tax
of more than enough to erect or repair the sidewalk or other improve-
ment on one side of such lot or parcel of land. In all cases where a
lessee or tenant shall pay the expense of any such improvement along the
side or sides of any lot or parcel of land occupied by him, by contract
with his lessee or landlord, he shall be bound to pav rent, the amount of
any such expense paid by him or collected from him, or made out of his
property, shall be a good and valid set-off against so much of the rent due
or accruing to his lessor or landlord: provided, further, that the owner
of such lot of land shall not be required to pay thereon any other tax for
town purposes for the year that said special tax shall be assessed and

aid.
12. For the purposes of taxation, the council shall provide for the an-
nual assessment of all real and personal property within the corporate
limits of said town, so that said assessment be not higher than that made
for county and State purposes, and such assessment shall be the basis of
taxation.

13. The town council may levy and provide for the collection of such
taxes as it may deem proper on all property—real and personal—within
said town, so that the same does not exceed one hundred cents on the
one hundred dollars’ assessed value; to impose a specific license on all
shows, performances, and exhibitions that may be given in or within one
mile of said town’s corporate limits; may impose a license tax on all
business on which the State imposes a license tax; may impose a license
tax on the sale of merchandise or other manufactured articles that be
offered for sale by any person, not permanently located and doing a reg-
ular business in said town; and the officers of said town shall have the
same power to collect taxes within the corporate limits of said town that
the county officers now have under the general laws of the State.

14. In the taxation of real estate provided for in this charter, all lots,
tracts, or parcels of land which lie partly within and partly without the
corporate limits of said town, that part which lies within shall be prop-
erly taxable by said town council.

15. All taxes assessed upon property—real or personal—within the
corporate limits of said town, under this act, are hereby declared to be
a lien upon said property.

16. Said town and persons and property therein shall be exempt from
the payment of county and district road taxes, and for which exemptions
said town shall keep its own streets and roads in order, and shall not be
embraced in any road district of said county. And this provision shall
apply to the assessment of taxes for the year nineteen hundred and two.

17. The mayor and councilmen, except the clerk, shall serve without
any compensation ; the compensation of the clerk to be fixed by the coun-
cil: provided, that the mayor shall be entitled to receive such fees as are
now allowed by law to justices of the peace when he acts in that capacity.

18. All other acts and parts of acts in reference to the incorporation of
the town of Pennington Gap are hereby repealed.

19. This act shall be in force from the time of its passage.