Bristersburg Historic District

Bristersburg is a small crossroads village in southeastern Fauquier County, Virginia, where Elk Run Road meets Bristersburg Road. The district covers about 28 acres and includes dwellings, former stores, a stone church, a cemetery, a former school and farm outbuildings, with 22 contributing and 9 noncontributing resources. The earliest surviving building is a store core said to date to about 1838, later enlarged into a dwelling. Zoar Baptist Church, built of stone in 1852, is the visual centerpiece. The 1910 school housed grades 1 through 12 until it closed in 1969 and later became a home. The village served as a trading center for surrounding farms from the mid-19th century well into the 20th, and an 1862 Civil War map shows its church, store and four dwellings. Its stores, blacksmith shop and Queen Anne house with an adjoining country store illustrate commerce and architecture. Now surrounded by large farms, it is among the best-preserved historic groupings in the area. All its commercial buildings are vacant.