Rockingham County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Rockingham County

Poultry-processing receipts here led every US county in the USDA's 2017 Census of Agriculture, with Rockingham reporting more turkey production than any other single county and a top-3 broiler ranking nationally — Cargill, Pilgrim's Pride, and George's all run processing plants in the Harrisonburg corridor along US-11 and I-81, and per Virginia Cooperative Extension the county raises roughly 60% of all turkeys produced east of the Mississippi. The Shenandoah Valley's geographic center sits inside Rockingham at the Massanutten Mountain, a 50-mile fault-block ridge that isolates the South Fork Shenandoah River from the main valley and produces the only east-side ski-resort terrain in the central Appalachians (Massanutten Resort, with a 1,110-ft vertical drop).

The South Fork's serpentine meanders carve some of the most heavily Karst-fractured limestone in the eastern US — at Grand Caverns 3 miles south in Augusta County, signature graffiti from Civil War cavalry on both sides still mark the cave walls, and Rockingham's own Endless Caverns on the western flank of Massanutten was a Confederate ammunition cache. Skyline Drive's southern segment crosses Rockingham at Loft Mountain Campground (Milepost 79.5), the highest campground in Shenandoah National Park at 3,400 ft elevation; the loop accepts rigs to 40 ft, runs late May through October, books on recreation.gov 6 months ahead per NPS Reservation Policy 2024. Harrisonburg (independent city, population 51,814, home of James Madison University) anchors the county on the I-81/US-33 cross-roads and is the practical resupply hub for any rig staging Shenandoah's southern district. The Mennonite Information Center on Rt. 42 documents the largest Mennonite/Brethren community concentration outside Pennsylvania.