Incorporated as a town in 1873, Manassas sprang from a vital but famously war-torn railroad junction to become the transportation, commercial, and governmental hub of Prince William County. The junction of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad with the Manassas Gap Railroad in the 1850s made the adjacent area a natural candidate for settlement. In 1892 the county seat was moved from Brentsville to Manassas, an event which resulted in the construction of the new Romanesque-style courthouse in 1894. County-seat status accelerated growth of both the commercial and residential areas. The broad variety of turn-of-the-20th-century houses served both county officials and railroad workers. An anchor of the district is the 1914 railroad station. Today the Manassas Historic District is the very image of the old-fashioned American town, a district intact and thriving but completely ringed by suburban sprawl.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia