Harrisonburg, VA news and local guide

The earliest documented English exploration of the area was the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition of Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood, which reached Elkton in 1716, and whose rangers likely passed through what is now Harrisonburg. The town, earlier called Rocktown, is named for Thomas Harrison, a son of English settlers and a member of Virginia's Harrison family, who settled in the Shenandoah Valley in 1737 and claimed more than 12,000 acres where the Spotswood Trail crossed the main Native road through the valley. In 1779 Harrison deeded 2.5 acres to the "public good" for a courthouse and in 1780 another 50 acres, the area now known as Historic Downtown Harrisonburg.

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In 1849 trustees chartered a mayor-council government, though Harrisonburg was not incorporated as an independent city until 1916. On June 6, 1862, a Civil War skirmish at Good's Farm on Chestnut Ridge near Harrisonburg took the life of the Confederate cavalry colonel Turner Ashby. In 1947 a gas leak caused an explosion at the Masters Building downtown that killed eleven people and injured thirty. Sources Wikipedia: Harrisonburg, Virginia