Laid out in 1826 as Mount Pleasant, the linear village on the banks of Mill Creek was soon renamed Mount Jackson after President Andrew Jackson. The Valley Turnpike and the Manassas Gap Railroad gave access to distant markets for the area's livestock, fruit, and grain. The village was noted for its flour mills. As the southern terminal for the railroad prior to the Civil War, Mount Jackson was a convalescent center for wounded soldiers transported to its hospitals. During the late nineteenth century, railroad passengers disembarked here and took stagecoaches to Orkney Springs (SH36), a fashionable resort hotel about ten miles west. Mount Jackson Visitor's Center (2003, Mather Barras Architects; 5901 Main Street) draws on the form and details of a late-nineteenth-century train station, which suits its location next to the railroad tracks. The red brick building includes the town's administrative offices and library.
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