Maurertown, VA

Maurertown is a Shenandoah County census-designated place whose old commercial footprint was bigger than the current label suggests. By the late 1800s, county history records two mercantile stores, two blacksmith shops, a carpenter shop, a chair factory, a sawmill, a shoe shop, a tin shop, and an ice house. The village sat within the wider Valley Turnpike and Shenandoah farm economy, where roads moved grain, lumber, and other goods through the county. Two nearby historic properties keep that older landscape in view. The Abraham Beydler House, built around 1800 by a German immigrant and Mennonite farmer, is now known as Valhalla Farm and is listed on the National Register. The Shenandoah County Farm, also called the county almshouse and Beckford Parish Glebe Farm, is another listed property near Maurertown. Maurertown is a CDP today, but its story still reads like a crossroads village with farms and old buildings around it.