Main Street America: Front Royal, Virginia
My job takes me to small towns all over the Mid-Atlantic, and they each have their own personalities. I like to seek out the little things that are the same no matter where you are, and the little things that make each place I visit different. It’s easy to forget that no matter where you go, everyone is a full and real person. Everyone you pass on Main Street America is the star of their own personal movie.
I found myself in Front Royal, Virginia on a recent morning. This town of 14,000 people is considered the “gateway” to Shenandoah National Park. However, the town long predates the park. The name comes from an ancient “Royal Oak” on the town green in the 1700s. When the local garrison would practice on the green, “Front Royal” was a apparently a common order yelled out by the drill sergeant. The name stuck.
Later, the town went by another colorful name: “Helltown”. This was from the many “livestock wranglers and boatmen” who stopped Front Royal while making their way up the Shenandoah River, for purposes of drinking and generally raising Hell. Drinking is still a major theme, and among the attractions on the town green is the Virginia Beer Museum. It’s “the first beer museum in the country to focus on a single state’s history of beer.”
Front Royal was the scene of a major battle during the Civil War. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson successfully crossed the Shenandoah River and captured the town during his Shenandoah campaign. Confederate memorials are a major feature outside small town courthouses throughout the south. There is one just off Main Street here that is both particularly large and one of the most northerly examples.
I was able to take a walk down Main Street while I was there and took pictures of everything I found interesting. Take a look at Front Royal, and we’ll try to bring scenes from a different small town Main Street soon!
