Mount Sidney, VA

Mount Sidney was established in 1826 along the Old Wagon Road through Augusta County, then grew when the route became the Valley Turnpike. The town's first buildings served travelers, and the Valley Railroad arriving just east after the Civil War widened the market for the local commercial center. The Mount Sidney Historic District preserves that turnpike-town shape, with houses and commercial buildings from the early nineteenth to mid-twentieth century; the old Mount Sidney School is listed separately. Read it as a Shenandoah Valley crossroads: road first, railroad next, and a historic district that still follows the outline of those two routes.