Front Royal, Virginia

Front Royal is a town in Warren County, Virginia, United States. The population was 14,440 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Warren County.

Geography

Front Royal is approximately 76 miles (122 km) west of Washington, D.C.

According to the 2010 United States Census, the town has a total area of 9.5 square miles (24.6 km²), of which 9.3 square miles (24.1 km²) is land and 0.2 square miles (0.5 km²) (2.52%) is water. In 2014 the town annexed additional land, increasing the town's total land area to 10.5 square miles (27.2 km²).

Front Royal is located at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River.

History

The entire Shenandoah Valley including the area to become Front Royal was annexed and claimed for hunting by the Iroquois Confederation during the later Beaver Wars, by 1672. Some bands of the Shawnee settled in the area as client groups to the Iroquois and alternately to the Cherokee after 1721. The Iroquois formally sold their entire claim east of the Alleghenies to the Virginia Colony at the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744. Front Royal, originally settled in 1754 under the name LeHewtown, had been known to European explorers as early as the 1670s, and the nearby settlement of Chester's Ferry was in existence by 1736. The town also had a well-known nickname by the 1790s, "Helltown," due to the many livestock wranglers and boatmen on the Shenandoah coming through the area, who came into town looking for alcohol. It was incorporated as "Front Royal" in 1788.