76 miles W of Washington, D.C.; 189 miles NW of Richmond
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, it is altogether fitting that Winchester comes first in my descriptions of the valley's towns, for its excellent Museum of the Shenandoah Valley provides an altogether fitting introduction to this area. Especially if you're arriving by car from the north or from Washington Dulles International Airport, Winchester should be your first stop.
Prior to the museum's opening in 2005, Winchester was best known as Virginia's "Apple Capital," so-called because of the number of apple orchards in the northern end of the valley. The Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in May is one of the region's most popular events.
What is now Winchester was the site of a Shawnee Indian campground before Pennsylvania Quakers settled here in 1732. George Washington set up shop in town during the French and Indian Wars 20 years later, and his office is still here. Thanks to its strategic location, Winchester changed hands no fewer than 72 times during the Civil War. Both Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson and Union Gen. Philip Sheridan made their headquarters here at one time or another.
Give yourself at least a morning or afternoon here to visit the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Washington's office, and Stonewall Jackson's headquarters. If you're a country music fan, you can drive by Winchester native Patsy Cline's old haunts and visit her gravesite on the edge of town.
"Crazy" for Patsy Cline -- Only die-hard country music fans know Winchester native named Virginia Hensley by her real name, for it was as Patsy Cline that she sang "Walkin' After Midnight" on the nationally televised Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts in the 1950s. The record of that song sold a million copies. Other tunes like "Crazy," "Leavin' on Your Mind," and "Imagine That" will forever be linked to Patsy Cline.
She was only 30 years old when she, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Cowboy Copas died in a plane crash in March 1963. Her body was brought home and buried in Shenandoah Memorial Park, 3 miles south of town on U.S. 522.
The Winchester/Frederick County Visitors Center has a Patsy Cline Corner that includes her very own jukebox. Pick up a brochure that points the way to her home, Gaunt's Drug Store where she worked, the high school she attended, GNM Music where she cut her first record, the house where she married second husband Charlie Dick, and her grave.
