Winchester, independent city, northern Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley; incorporated as a city 1874. It is the seat of Frederick County, but is administratively independent of the county. The city also serves as a commercial, transportation, and processing center for an orchard region noted for its apples. Furniture, motor-vehicle parts, and rubber and plastic products are manufactured here. Winchester is the site of Shenandoah University (1875) and the annual Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival. Points of interest include the office George Washington used as a surveyor in the 1750s, Abram's Delight and Log Cabin (1754), and the headquarters of the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and the Union general Philip Sheridan during the American Civil War.
The community, settled about 1732, is named for Winchester, England. George Washington began his surveying career in Winchester in 1748 and maintained military headquarters here in 1755-58, during the French and Indian War. Because of its strategic location at the northern entrance to the Shenandoah Valley, the Winchester area was the scene of three important Civil War battles (1862, 1863, 1864) and changed hands more than 70 times during that period. The writer Willa Cather and Admiral Richard E. Byrd were born here. Population 20,217 (1980); 21,947 (1990); 23,585 (2000).
