European settlement in the area began around 1740,[citation needed] when it was named for the Lee family, early colonial leaders of the town.

Leesburg is 33 miles (53 km) west-northwest of Washington, D.C., along the base of Catoctin Mountain and close to the Potomac River.

Like much of Loudoun County, Leesburg has undergone considerable growth and development over the last 30 years, transforming from a small, rural, Piedmont town to a suburban bedroom community for commuters to the national capital.

[citation needed] In 1699, the Algonquian Piscataway (Conoy) moved to an island in the Potomac in the environs of Leesburg, and were there when the first known Europeans visited what is now Loudoun County.

According to local historians, a pitched battle was fought near present Leesburg between the warring Catawba and Lenape tribes, neither of whom lived in the area.

A war party of Lenape had traveled from their home in New Jersey and neighboring regions, all the way to South Carolina to inflict a blow on their distant enemies, the Catawba.

As they were returning northward, a party of Catawbas overtook them before they reached the Potomac River, but were defeated in a pitched battle 2 miles (3 km) south of Leesburg.

[8] European settlement near Leesburg began in the late 1730s as Tidewater planters moved into the area from the south and east, establishing large farms and plantations.

[citation needed] The village's prosperity changed the following year when the British Colonial Council ordered the establishment of the county courthouse at the crossroads.

On October 12 of that year (1758), the Virginia General Assembly founded the town of Leesburg upon the 60 acres (0.24 km2) that Minor laid out.

[7] During the War of 1812, Leesburg served as a temporary haven for the United States government and its archives, including the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and portraits of early American leaders, including Benjamin Franklin, when it was forced to flee Washington in the face of the British Army.

[7] Early in the American Civil War, Leesburg was the site of the Battle of Ball's Bluff, a small but significant Confederate victory.

The battlefield, along the Potomac River 2 miles (3 km) northeast of the town center, is marked by one of America's smallest national cemeteries.

The town frequently changed hands over the course of the war as both armies traversed the area during the Maryland and Gettysburg campaigns.

The Battle of Mile Hill was fought just north of the town prior to its occupation by Robert E. Lee in September 1862.

In 1889, a 14-year-old black American Orion Anderson was killed by a white mob at the town's freight depot; his murder would be the second of three recorded lynchings in Loudoun County, Virginia, between 1880 and 1902.

[13] In the 21st century, Downtown merchants have recently labeled themselves "Loudoun's Original Town Center," largely in response to the growing number of mixed-use shopping areas in proximity.

Leesburg is assigned to the Washington, D.C. media market, and is covered by its major television and radio stations; broadcasters from Baltimore, Frederick, and Winchester are also readily available.

Loudoun County Transit provides public transportation services in Leesburg, including commuter routes to Washington, D.C. and a connector to Purcellville, Virginia.

[citation needed] Godfrey, who, by the early 1950s, had purchased the Beacon Hill Estate west of Leesburg, used a DC-3 to commute from his farm to studios in New York City every Sunday night during the 1950s and 1960s.

Three main focal points connect this maze of underground buildings, one of which is currently the headquarters of Civilian Police International,[33] a government sub-contract company.

[34] A plaza on the east side of the site contains several structures painted in the yellow and green colors of the stations of the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which served the town until 1968.