Historic Strasburg

Historic Strasburg. Stop 10. , To your right is the intersection of Queen and Holliday Streets. Holliday Street was first known as Market Street, but in 1878 the street was renamed in honor of Frederick Holliday, the Governor of Virginia. South Holliday Street did not extend beyond the top of the hill until the river bridge was constructed in 1970., In early times, the Town Square was at the intersection of King and Holliday Streets to your left. The town well was there, surrounded by a stockade. In the 1750s and 1760s there were a number of deadly Indian raids in the Valley. The stockade and the little village of Strasburg offered safety and shelter from the dangers of the frontier. Strasburg did away with the Town Square in the late 1800s after an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia granted the town authority to sell public property. Landowners at each corner of the intersection obtained a small amount of land in the sale., Strasburg had several gunsmith shops in the early days of settlement. One of those shops was located on the corner to your right at today's 216 S. Holliday Street. George W. Fisher and his son Uriah Fisher made American (also called Kentucky) long rifles here throughout the first half of the 19th Century. The log structure stood until destroyed by fire on January 1, 1926., On the site of the Hotel Strasburg, Christopher Keister, Jr. operated an ordinary (inn with a pub) in 1782. In 1895, Dr. Mackall Bruin opened a hospital in the current Hotel Annex building. In 1902, he built the large structure on the corner as a new main hospital building. Sometime after 1912, the hospital was converted into a boarding house containing office space, and by the mid-1920s it was renovated as a hotel., During this time Chautauqua groups came to Strasburg, pitching big tents diagonally across from the Hotel Strasburg behind where you stand. These groups were part of a cultural and social movement that originated in upstate New York and flourished from the late 1800s to the mid-1920s. Rooted in the philosophy that learning should continue throughout life, Chautauqua brought lectures, dance, music, and drama to communities across rural America. For a full week, normal activity was interrupted as citizens attended lectures and performances, and the children of the town practiced a play, which was performed as the week's finale. The spirit of learning and community thrived when Chautauqua came to town, and the movement was so influential that Teddy Roosevelt called it "the most American thing about America.", (Captions):, Dr. Mackall Bruin, Advertisement for Chautauqua events from Strasburg News, 1927, We hope you have enjoyed our walking trail of Historic Strasburg and have learned a few things that make our town special! To reach Stop 1 go one block north to King Street, turn right and continue to the Strasburg Museum. , 440 East King Street