Augusta County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Augusta County

Milepost 0 of the Blue Ridge Parkway sits at Rockfish Gap on the Augusta-Nelson county line, where the Parkway's northern terminus connects without traffic-light interruption to Skyline Drive at Shenandoah National Park's southern entrance — the only point in the US national park system where two NPS-managed scenic parkways meet end-to-end on a continuous 575-mile drive from the New River Gorge in West Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. The handoff is so seamless that most RV travelers cross from one unit to the other without noticing the change in jurisdiction, posted-speed convention, or trail-permit framework (Skyline Drive caps RVs at 38 ft per NPS Foundation Document for SHEN; the Parkway has no length cap but enforces a 12-ft height clearance through Mary's Rock Tunnel at MP 5.4 and several others).

Augusta County wraps the independent city of Staunton (population 25,750, birthplace of President Woodrow Wilson, with the only fully-restored Presidential birthplace home in Virginia), Waynesboro (population 22,196 at the Parkway terminus), and the western Shenandoah Valley between the Allegheny Mountains and the Blue Ridge. The entire George Washington National Forest segment between I-64 and US-250 falls inside the county; Sherando Lake Recreation Area in the GWNF Pedlar District accepts rigs to 30 ft with no hookups, sits at 1,800 ft elevation, and runs late April through October per USFS Region 8 calendar. The Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton reconstructs 17th-19th century working farmsteads from West Africa, England, Germany, and Ireland — the four immigrant-source geographies of the early valley settlers. Augusta is among the original 7 Virginia counties chartered in 1745.