Warrenton Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Warrenton is a small courthouse town in the Piedmont of Fauquier County, Virginia, about forty-seven miles south of Washington, D.C. This historic district takes in its downtown business blocks along Main Street, the civic buildings around Courthouse Square, and five residential neighborhoods. The dominant landmark is the Classical Revival courthouse of 1890, designed by William H. Baldwin, with a tetrastyle Ionic portico and cupola. Nearby public buildings in the Colonial Revival style echo its classical character. Houses along Culpeper, Winchester, Main and Lee streets range from late 18th-century Federal dwellings to Italianate, Queen Anne and early 20th-century cottages. The town began as a crossroads settlement and became the county seat in 1759. Its significance rests on its role in law and politics, as the early career home of John Marshall and others, on its academies and seminaries, and on its Civil War associations. A bypass has kept the historic center largely intact.