Exmore

Exmore is a quiet rural town of just under 1,500 residents nestled in the heart of Virginia’s Eastern Shore peninsula. Its advantageous location, midway between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and the Virginia-Maryland line, has made Exmore an important transportation and commercial hub since its founding. Today, Exmore is home to more than 150 businesses and services, large and small, including three manufacturers serving national and international markets. Its reputation as a business-friendly service town continues to stimulate growth here. Currently, Exmore is the largest town in Northampton County and ranks as the 117th largest municipality in the state. Lankford Highway (Route 13), the main artery for traffic flowing north and south, divides the town east and west with residential neighborhoods and commercial properties on both sides. Exmore’s downtown shops and administrative buildings are easily accessed by a convenient on and off loop connecting the state highway with the original route 13, now Main Street. Exmore is also home to three national hotel brands, accommodating thousands of visitors each year. But this is not a seasonal tourist town. It is a relaxed, year around community with a laid-back charm that is reminiscent of earlier life on the shore with traditional family values, courteous people, and warm hospitality. Everyone is welcome here. Residents are proud of Exmore’s reputation as an unpretentious “working man’s town” and of its commitment to diversity and inclusion. There’s a genuine sense of community. This is a place where the mayor and vice-mayor serve free hot dogs to families at Town Socials; where police officers dress as the Easter Bunny to entertain kids in the Town Park and where the Town Manager’s door is always open. Exmore is a citizen-centric town. Decisions are based on the best outcome for the people who live and work here. Over the past decade, excellent management and oversight, enlightened leadership reenforced by long-term thinking, have keep taxes stable and the town’s budget balanced and positive. While deeply rooted in tradition, Exmore nurtures entrepreneurial thinking and creativity, with the first co-working and entrepreneur space on the Eastern Shore and a pipeline filled with innovative projects ready for development. The future looks bright. If you’re looking for a great place to raise a family, with positive neighbors, a safe environment (thanks to an outstanding police presence); a wholesome community where business can thrive and where residents and business owners have a voice in shaping policy—welcome to Exmore. Exmore was officially incorporated as a Town in 1950, however the community was named and shaped in the late 1800s with the coming of the railroad. Its historical roots go much deeper. In 1661, John Cobb, an Englishman who arrived on the Eastern Shore in 1642, received a land grant of six hundred acres extending from the upper end of Nassawadox Creek into the center of what would become downtown Exmore. For more than two hundred years, the area that now encompasses Exmore was farmland, stretching from the current village of Willis Wharf to Belle Haven. The arrival of the railroad in 1884 transformed the community and the entire Eastern Shore. Exmore was designated as the first stop in Northampton County for the New York-Pennsylvania-Norfolk Railroad, and the town was officially “born”. Until the railroad, Exmore’s distance from water transportation forestalled the activity and growth experienced by neighboring harbor towns. Once the railroad was placed down the spine of the Eastern Shore, ready to carry produce from local farms to the large consumer markets north in Philadelphia and New York City, new economic and social ecosystems emerged. Exmore became a lively center of commerce for the Eastern Shore’s abundant potatoes, cabbage, onions, and other produce as well as for the burgeoning tourism industry focused on the lavish hotels and sports clubs o