About Our County

     Newcomers to the northern portion of the Shenandoah Valley, accustomed to thinking of "down" as being a southerly direction, are often puzzled to hear the oldtimers refer to places to the north as being "down the valley." They soon learn that northern Valley thinking is shaped more by the direction the rivers flow than by the way things look on a map.

     Part of the uniqueness of Augusta County is that Augustans can apply "down the valley" in both directions. Their centrality includes the fact that tributaries originating here feed both the Potomac River to the north and the James River to the south. This is just one of the facts that mark Augusta County as the border between the northern Valley and the southern Valley. Going "up the valley" means heading for Augusta for people in Winchester as well as those in Buchanan!

     Augusta County lies astride the storied Shenandoah Valley at the point that divides the northern valley from the southern valley. It also includes the major crossing point of the valley, where the Valley's only east-west Interstate Highway, I-64, crosses the Blue Ridge mountains. Augusta is also the location of the regional airport serving the cities of Staunton, Waynesboro, and Harrisonburg, and several surrounding counties.

     There are two scenic mountain roads near the crest of the Blue Ridge that provide striking views to millions of visitors every year. They are two roads, not one, because each has its own name and are in fact administered by different agencies. The Skyline Drive is a part of the Shenandoah National Park and is administered by the National Park Service. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Forest and is administered by the Agriculture Department.

     Where do they connect? At Rockfish Gap, which lies partly in Augusta County and was the primary entrance into the Valley and Augusta County for settlers from the east in the early years. The Gap is partly in the County.

Augusta's significance in American frontier history was a major factor in the recent establishment in the county of the Museum of America Frontier Culture, a substantial undertaking by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The museum is not in a single building, but embraces a large tract of land which contains authentic reconstruction of three farms from pre-emigration Europe and an 1835 farm (thus dating from before the Civil War) from Botetourt County in the Shenandoah Valley.

When the County was first created in 1738, the colony of Virginia and Augusta County extended westward to the Mississippi River. Augusta then included all or part of what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, and Kentucky. This vast territory, of course, was largely a raw frontier, settled almost entirely by American Indians, and it could not possibly be governed as a single county even when roads and settlements were built by people of European descent. It is now content to stretch from the eastern boundary of the Valley, the Blue Ridge, to its western boundary in the Appalachians, covering a mere 967 sq. miles (the 2d largest county in Va.).

Scots-Irish farm (c. 1700) recreated at Frontier Museum

     Two of the major cities in the Valley, Staunton and Waynesboro, are enclosed within Augusta County. Staunton is actually considered the County Seat, although in Virginia cities are legally separate governmental entities from counties. Staunton was, until recently, the location for county offices, including the Sheriff's office and the jail. Most of the offices have been moved to a new government center in the town of Verona, but the County Courthouse and the sheriff's department are still in Staunton. Because of this close relationship, Augusta is also proud to claim, along with Staunton, to be the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States. Wilson was the World War I president and a principal founder of the League of Nations. He served in the White House for two terms, from 1913 until 1921.

     There are two colleges in the County. Mary Baldwin College in Staunton is one of Virginia's fine colleges for women, possessing national esteem along with Sweet Briar and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Mary Baldwin was an Augustan who organized a successful school for girls in a great outburst of private education in the years following the Civil War. The Blue Ridge Community College in the northern part of the County is a rapidly-developing entrance into higher learning for every segment of County society.

     Economic development in the County has always been robust. One home-grown industry is Virginia Metalcrafters in Waynesboro. It was founded in 1890 as the W. J. Loth Stove Company to manufacture cast-iron stoves to burn coal or wood. As times changed they expanded to produce such items as frying pans and other kitchen utensils, which led to the production of more decorative items in such metals as brass, copper, and pewter. In time they were producing items with historical value for Colonial Williamsburg. This part of their business quickly expanded so that now they replicate items under license for the Smithsonian Institution, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Historic Charleston, Winterhur, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the New England sites, Newport, Salem, and Old Sturbridge.

     The Valley Libraries are proud to be in an area rich in history and that has a frontier spirit of daring and enterprise, as well as a love for learning and culture.

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This site is maintained by the Augusta County Library. This page was last updated on 2/23/2007.