Shenandoah Valley

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Image:Shenandoah valley farm 0163.jpg Image:Canoe1572.jpg

The Shenandoah Valley region of western Virginia, from Winchester to Staunton, is bounded by the Blue Ridge mountains to the East and the Allegheny mountains to the West. Harrisonburg, Waynesboro,Winchester and Front Royal are also among the many small towns in the Valley. The region also includes the eastern panhandle of West Virginia and the cities of Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry. Down the center of the Shenandoah Valley runs the Massanutten Mountain range, encompassing Powell's Fort Valley in Shenandoah County.

The word "Shenandoah" was derived for the Native American expression for "Beautiful Daughter of the Stars." The Valley Pike (or Valley Turnpike) began as a migratory trail for tribes such as the Delaware and Catawba and became the major thoroughfare of wagons, and in time, motor vehicles. By the 20th century, the Valley Turnpike was a toll road, eventually being acquired by the Commonwealth of Virginia and becoming U.S. Highway 11. For much of the length, the newer Interstate 81 parallels the old Valley Pike.

Geologically the Shenandoah Valley reaches as far as Roanoke; however, it and Lexington are not in the Shenandoah River basin, which reaches somewhat south of Staunton. From north to south, the Shenandoah Valley encompasses two counties in West Virginia: Berkeley County and Jefferson County; and seven counties in Virginia: Frederick County, Clarke County, Warren County, Shenandoah County, Page County, Rockingham County, and Augusta County.

The Shenandoah Valley is a productive agricultural region. Despite the great promise of the rich farmland of the Valley, the Blue Ridge Mountains, crossed by Governor Alexander Spotswood's legendary Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition at Swift Run Gap in 1716, were a major obstacle to colonial expansion from the east. Instead, the Valley was first settled by German and then by Scotch-Irish immigrants from Pennsylvania in the 1730s. The former were known as "Shenandoah Deitsch". Both stocks came south into the Valley from the Potomac River, in contrast to the largely English settlement of the Virginia tidewater and piedmont regions.