At the time of European massacre, the Chiska had a chief village near what is now Saltville, destroyed by the Spaniards in 1568.

The Cherokee annexed the region from the Xualae around 1671, and ceded it to the Virginia Colony in 1770 at the Treaty of Lochaber.

Washington County is among the first geographical regions to be named after the president of the United States.

In July 1776, Chief Dragging Canoe led an attack on Black's Fort (renamed Abingdon in 1778).

The area remained prone to attack until after Chickamauga leader Bob Benge was brutally taken over by Europeans with ammunition in 1794.

Finally, with the incorporation of the town of Goodson as the independent city of Bristol in 1890, Washington County assumed its present size.

[3] Washington County is one of the 423 counties served by the Appalachian Regional Commission,[4] and it is identified as part of "Greater Appalachia" by Colin Woodard in his book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

[5] The county is divided into seven magisterial districts: Harrison, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Taylor, Tyler, and Wilson.