A true treasure has made its way back to Wytheville thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Town of Wytheville Department of Museums and the Wythe County Historical Society. Painted by David Silvette of Richmond, VA, circa 1931, this remarkable work of Thornton Nye once belonged in the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington D.C. Now it stands proudly in the Heritage Preservation Center. “We learned about this…through Jimmy Spraker. He discovered that a portrait existed of Thornton Nye, so we compiled a letter to the Gallery and requested that the portrait be donated to our museum collection,” explained Frances Emerson, director of the Town of Wytheville Department of Museums.
Thornton Nye sported an unusually large head and had to walk with a cane to keep himself upright. He stood 4-feet, 9 inches tall and sold his cranium to the Boston 
Medical Institute in Boston, MA for study after his death. Nye was compensated for his decision before he passed away in 1935 at the age of 56. His mother could not live with the fact that her son’s head would be separated from his body, so Nye’s entire body was sent to the Institute and a dummy was placed in his coffin for his funeral.
Thornton Nye’s family ran the Nye Lithia Springs, reveled for its healing waters. It has been said that Nye could compute complex mathematical equations in his head and was gifted with a high lever of intelligence. Historian Jimmy Spraker, who gave a talk on the piece for the Wythe County Historical Society’s Membership Meeting, believes that there is no better place for the portrait and that “It is arguably the best piece of art work we [WCHS] own at this point.” Feel free to come by and say hi to Thornton Nye!