Indigenous peoples lived along the waterways of present-day Virginia for thousands of years before European contact.

Though little is known of specific tribal movements before European contact, the Shenandoah Valley area, considered a sacred common hunting ground, appears by the 17th century to have been controlled mostly by the local Iroquoian-speaking groups, including the Senedo and Sherando.

The explorers Batts and Fallam in 1671 reported the Shawnee were contesting with the Iroquoians for control of the valley and were losing.

During the later Beaver Wars, the powerful Iroquois Confederacy from New York (particularly Seneca from the western part of the territory) subjugated all tribes in the frontier region west of the Fall Line.

During the first decade of white settlement, the valley was also a conduit and battleground in a bloody intertribal war between the Seneca and allied Algonquian-speaking Lenape from the north, and their distant traditional enemies, the Siouan Catawba based in the Carolinas.

The Iroquois Six Nations (the Tuscarora people had joined them by 1722 after losing battles in the Carolinas in the early 18th century) finally ceded their nominal claim to the Shenandoah Valley at the Treaty of Lancaster (1744), arranged by British officials.

French Jesuit expeditions may have first entered the valley as early as 1606, as the explorer Samuel de Champlain made a crude map of the area in 1632.

In the late 1720s, Governor William Gooch promoted settlement by issuing large land grants.

This combination of events directly precipitated an inrush of settlers from Pennsylvania and New York, made up of a blend of Quakers and German and Scots-Irish homesteaders, many of them new immigrants.

[10] The first German settler appears to have been Jost Hite in 1732, who brought ten other families, including some Scots-Irish.

As a result, the Winchester area became home to some of the oldest Presbyterian, Quaker, Lutheran and Anglican churches in the valley.

The first government was created, consisting of a County Court as well as the Anglican Frederick Parish (for purposes of tax collection).

Colonel James Wood, an immigrant from Winchester, England, was the first court clerk and had been a surveyor for Orange County, Virginia.

It occasionally held Quakers from many parts of Virginia who protested the French and Indian War and refused to pay taxes to the Anglican parish.

During the war in 1758, at the age of 26, Colonel George Washington was elected to represent Frederick County to the House of Burgesses.

Daniel Morgan later served as a ranger protecting the borderlands of Virginia against Indian raids, returning to Winchester in 1759.

Hessian soldiers were known to walk to the high ridge north and west of town, where they could purchase and eat apple pies made by the Quakers.

The local farmers found booming business in feeding the Virginia Militia and fledgling volunteer American army.

Winchester and the surrounding area were the site of numerous battles during the American Civil War, as the Confederate and Union armies strove to control that portion of the Shenandoah Valley.

At the north end of the lower Shenandoah Valley, Winchester was a base of operations for major Confederate invasions into the Northern United States.

Major General Sheridan raided up the valley from Winchester, where his forces destroyed "2,000 barns filled with grain and implements, not to mention other outbuildings, 70 mills filled with wheat and flour" and "numerous head of livestock," to lessen the area's ability to supply the Confederates.

Among those who took part in battles at Winchester were future U.S. presidents McKinley and Hayes, both as officers in the Union IX Corps.

[17]: 366  Winchester is the location of the bi-annual N-SSA national competition, keeping the tradition of Civil War era firearms alive.

A three-block section of downtown Loudoun Street was closed to vehicular traffic in the 1970s and is a popular pedestrian area featuring many boutiques and cafés.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.3 square miles (24 km2), virtually all land.

This plant complemented the other existing manufacturing facilities of Capitol Records in Scranton, PA, Jacksonville, FL and Los Angeles, CA.

The festival includes a carnival, firework show, parades, several dances and parties, and a coronation where the Apple Blossom Queen is crowned.

[37] Winchester has more than 20 different "artistic" apples that are made of various materials including wood, rubber pipe, plaster, and paint.

For example, a bright red apple with a large stethoscope attached to it was placed beside a much-used entrance to the Winchester Medical Center.

[39] Shenandoah University is located in Winchester and has numerous male and female sports in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.