Mt. Sidney Historic District

Mt. Sidney is a turnpike village in northern Augusta County, Virginia, about ten miles north of Staunton on the old Valley Turnpike. Laid out in 1826 with long, narrow lots facing the main road, it grew from a few buildings of the 1820s, including a brick tavern and a brick store with Flemish bond brickwork and decorative cornices. Antebellum growth brought frame I-houses with Greek Revival detailing, small log dwellings, shops, a tavern and the first denominational church, along with a pottery whose kiln site lies in the present park. The arrival of the railroad and heavier turnpike traffic spurred late nineteenth-century expansion. New I-houses with front gables and more irregular Victorian-style homes appeared, and the village spread south, where a substantial black community lived, and west, where the white school was built. Today the core remains largely intact, and archaeological sites from the black community survive undisturbed. The district is recognized for its architecture, commerce, transportation and settlement history.