The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development awarded the Town of Pocahontas with a $1,000,000 grant to help fund their downtown revitalization. In 2012 Thomas Burns Childress, filed a lawsuit on behalf of Historic Pocahontas, Inc. to preserve buildings slated for demolition and redevelop them instead. The lawsuit stopped the revitalization project, which was never completed. In 2016 the lawsuit was dismissed, as one of the historic buildings had deteriorated for public safety after much of the building had caved in. The money which would have helped the town with their tourism focus in cleaning up the derelict buildings was lost.