The Stauntonian: Volume 1, Issue 27 | Birthdays, Byers & Betsy Bell
Staunton hosts America’s 250th birthday party at Gypsy Hill Park on Saturday. Tunnel crews reach New Street ahead of schedule. And three new Stauntonian sections launch with a run of fresh stories.
This Week at a Glance
The heat beat the holiday to town. Saturday’s forecast flirts with 100 degrees, the cooling shelter at Faith Lutheran opened its doors Monday, and the city shuffled downtown trash pickup so nothing bakes on Beverley Street over the weekend. The party goes on anyway. Saturday marks 250 years since the Declaration, and Staunton, which has thrown this particular party since 1970, gets to do it with official America 250 recognition. Pack a lawn chair. Pack water. Then pack more water than that.
Lead Stories
The 250th Fourth Belongs to Gypsy Hill Park
The Statler Brothers launched Happy Birthday America in 1970 because Gypsy Hill Park sat quiet on the Fourth and they figured their hometown deserved better. Fifty-six years on, that homegrown celebration lands on the biggest Independence Day the country has seen in a generation. Staunton City Council sealed the arrangement earlier this year with a symbolic $1 lease of the park to Happy Birthday America, Inc., and the event now carries formal standing as part of the America 250 national commemoration.
Things kick off Friday evening with a vesper service, then run all day Saturday. Gates open at 6 a.m. for lawn chairs, the Firecracker 5K steps off at 7:30, and the parade loops the park at 10, per Visit Staunton’s event schedule. The main lot opens at noon with food, vendors, and carnival rides. Music starts at 2 with the Stonewall Brigade Band, followed by Prime, SJ McDonald, and Jack & Davis Reid on the main stage. Wilson Fairchild headlines at 7:30, joined an hour later by Jimmy Fortune, the Statler Brothers tenor and Country Music Hall of Fame member. A veteran salute at 9:55 rolls straight into fireworks at 10. All of it is free.
Getting there rewards a plan. The city’s holiday advisory warns of heavy traffic around the park both days, worst on Saturday morning. Thornrose Avenue closes Saturday from 7:30 a.m. until noon for the parade, and Circle Drive stays shut from 7:30 a.m. through the end of the event. Constitution Drive, the park’s main artery, closes to vehicles from 11 p.m. Friday until the parade clears around noon Saturday. General parking is off-limits in the football stadium lot beside Lake Tams from Thursday through Sunday morning, though drivers with DMV-approved disabled placards or plates keep limited spaces. Want the backstory on how any of this came to be? Our People & Culture piece above has it.
Tunnel Crews Reach New Street Ahead of Schedule
The $4.6 million Downtown Tunnel Repairs project pulled off something public infrastructure rarely manages this week. It ran early. Crews started work Monday on the New Street tunnel sections, months sooner than planned, which the city credits to favorable spring weather and steady progress at Byers Street, according to a city release covered by Augusta Free Press. City Engineer Lyle Hartt praised contractor Virginia Infrastructure’s efficiency and called the jump to New Street the logical next step.
The disruption here reads mild next to what the Wharf has swallowed since February. South New Street stays open, but the travel lane shifts to the right side of the road. Eleven on-street parking spaces vanish for now, and up to 20 spaces in the western portion of the RMA lot sit fenced off for staging, per WHSV. The city points drivers to the New Street Parking Garage, still fully open. Officials expect the New Street phase to bite less than Byers Street did, since crews are replacing only part of the tunnel rather than rebuilding its walls.
Byers Street itself has entered the home stretch. Hartt told WHSV that demolition is finished, the foundation and concrete stem walls are cast in place, and the precast upper sections land in mid-July. The whole project traces back to the back-to-back floods of 2020. Those floods exposed how badly the century-old tunnels carrying Lewis Creek under downtown needed replacing, though as our new Local History piece lays out, the trouble underneath the Wharf runs back a good deal further than that. Timelines, parking diagrams, and answers to common questions live on the city’s project page.
Betsy Bell Deaths: Two Identified, Case Still Open
Staunton police have named the two people found dead inside a home in the 300 block of Betsy Bell Road on June 23. Makenna S. Smith, 28, and Joel A. Robinson, 36, both of Staunton, were located after officers responded to an unknown medical emergency around 4:45 p.m., according to WHSV. The department says the case looks like an isolated incident with no suspect outstanding, but the investigation stays open and no manner of death has been released, as Augusta Free Press reported. Anyone with information can call the Staunton Police Department at 540-332-3842.
A Cool Room in a Hot Week
The timing could hardly have landed better. The Staunton Cooling Shelter opened Monday afternoon in the basement of Faith Lutheran Church, days ahead of a forecast run of triple-digit heat, WHSV reports. The low-barrier space serves residents of Staunton, Augusta County, and Waynesboro who are unhoused, whose air conditioning has quit, or who just need somewhere safe to wait out the worst of the afternoon. Nobody gets screened at the door. Inside wait free food, water, air conditioning, books, and games. Volunteer coordinator Mary McCoy told WHSV ahead of the opening that elderly residents in older homes without climate control rank among the most vulnerable people the shelter hopes to reach.
New This Week: Three Sections, One Deep Bench
The Stauntonian grew this week. Three dedicated sections are now live, each with its own newsletter, and every current subscriber is enrolled in all three without lifting a finger. Here is what has already landed in each.
People & Culture opens with two pieces built for this exact weekend. How Staunton Became America’s Fourth of July Town traces the line from a quiet park and four hometown stars through 25 summers of free concerts to the celebration you will stand in on Saturday. And with fall already on the horizon, QCMM 2026: What We Know So Far lays out the September 26-27 return of Queen City Mischief & Magic, a new medal series, confirmed ghost tours, and the beautiful chaos that swallows Beverley Street every autumn. The section also carries our full explainer on Mary Baldwin’s Financial Reckoning, a plain-language look at the university’s SACSCOC probation and what the next 12 months demand of it.
Local History launches with A Hundred and Seventy Years of the Same Problem, the story of how the Wharf District has been rebuilding on the same flood-prone ground since the railroad arrived in 1854. If you have watched crews work the tunnels this year and wondered why the water keeps coming back, this is the answer, and it runs a lot deeper than 2020.
Outdoors & Recreation arrives with three ways out of town. The Highest Point in Augusta County climbs Elliott Knob to one of only three fire lookout towers left standing in Virginia. The Blue Ridge’s Secret Beach makes the case for Sherando Lake, 40 minutes out inside the George Washington National Forest. And The Park Most Staunton Residents Drive Past finds five miles of singletrack and a birding legacy hiding on the southwest edge of the city.
Quick Hits
Glover retires, Smithgall steps in. After more than three decades with the city, Building Official John Glover has retired. The city credits him with a hand in the projects that reshaped downtown, including the Blackfriars Playhouse and Hotel 24 South, along with flood safety work. David Smithgall took over July 1, per the city’s announcement.
Richmond dodges a shutdown. The General Assembly passed a state budget Monday, heading off a government shutdown that would have started this week, WHSV reports. A batch of new laws also took effect July 1, among them measures aimed at dangerous driving and pedestrian safety.
Early voting rolls on. Early voting for the August Republican Primary runs through August 1 at City Hall, 116 West Beverley Street, weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekend hours open Sundays July 19 and 26 from noon to 5 p.m. and Saturdays July 25 and August 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., per the city.
Holiday schedule shifts. City offices close Friday, July 3. The library and Recycling Center close Friday and Saturday. The Gypsy Hill Park Pool closes Saturday, though the Montgomery Hall Park pool keeps regular hours. The golf course shuts at 1 p.m. Friday and stays closed Saturday because it sits near the fireworks detonation zone. And in a late call driven by the heat, downtown business district customers get trash collection Friday morning so bags don’t sit through a scorching weekend, per the city’s updated advisory.
Out & About
The holiday owns the weekend, but downtown keeps its own beat around it.
Shop & Dine Out, Extended Edition
Beverley Street closes to cars at 4 p.m. Thursday, July 2 and stays foot-traffic-only through 7:30 a.m. Monday, July 6, an extended run for the holiday, according to the city. Four evenings of open-air dining and shopping, no engine noise on the menu.
Happy Birthday America
Friday vesper service and a full Saturday at Gypsy Hill Park, covered up top. The complete schedule sits at happybirthdayamerica.org.
Blackfriars Playhouse
The American Shakespeare Center’s summer repertory pairs Shakespeare’s As You Like It, running through August 9, with Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, as the Blackfriars Playhouse marks its 25th anniversary. Rosalind bolts for the Forest of Arden in one; Grover’s Corners measures out the plain weight of an ordinary life in the other. Between the two, the season covers most of what a stage can do. Dates and tickets are at the ASC calendar, 10 S. Market St.
River Watch
The South River is holding low and steady. The USGS gauge near Waynesboro read 2.38 feet early Thursday morning, right where it has sat all week inside a narrow band between 2.32 and 2.44 feet. Flat water this time of year beats a fresh surge, and the trout will take the shade over a spike any day. The reading carries the usual provisional tag from USGS, so anglers and paddlers heading out for the Fourth should still read conditions at the bank before wading in.
The Sneeze Index
Breathing comes easy this week even as the mercury refuses to. IQAir’s Staunton page showed an air quality index of 43 Thursday morning, squarely in the Good range, with fine particulates as the main pollutant at 7.7 µg/m³. Pollen sits at Low. Tree season has wound down, and grass and weed counts are staying modest for now. Get your outdoor time in early, before the afternoon heat and haze settle over the valley.
The Weekly Pump
Good news for holiday drivers. Virginia’s average for regular gasoline stood at $3.67 on Wednesday, a fifth straight week of declines, with premium at $4.57 and diesel at $4.80, according to AAA figures reported by WSLS. That holds the Commonwealth comfortably under the AAA national average of $3.85. GasBuddy analysts peg the national average at its lowest since mid-March, though they warn prices in some states could bounce around the holiday. Shop before you fill. The spread between the cheapest and priciest pumps in the region runs past a dollar a gallon, and GasBuddy will point you to the low end nearby.
Real Estate Watch
The statewide picture came into focus this month, and it points toward a market that keeps climbing without racing. Virginia logged 10,940 closed home sales in May, roughly 291 more than a year earlier, with the median sale price reaching $452,060, according to the Virginia REALTORS May report. Inventory told the more interesting story. Active listings across the Commonwealth rose to 25,871, nearly 10 percent more than last year, which means buyers have more to choose from than they have in a while.
Staunton runs cheaper and tighter than the state at large. The city’s median sale price sat around $286,000 in the most recent Redfin read, up roughly 10 percent year over year, with homes going under contract in about eight weeks, per Redfin’s Staunton market page. A median a third below the statewide figure is the kind of number that still turns heads at a dinner party in Charlottesville, and it remains one of the strongest cards the Queen City holds.
Market figures reflect the most recent monthly reporting from Virginia REALTORS and Redfin. For specific recent sales, consult a local agent with MLS access.
Who’s Hiring
City of Staunton, Utility Locate Technician. Public Works needs someone to find and mark the buried infrastructure that keeps the city running, using GPS and mapping tools. Starting pay runs $21.10 to $25.00 an hour with health insurance and VRS retirement. The job requires a Virginia Class A CDL with tanker endorsement, though the city will train the right candidate toward it. Apply through the city’s jobs portal.
Staunton City Schools, Elementary Teacher. McSwain Elementary is hiring for the 2026-27 year. The 200-day contract begins in late July with a salary range of $54,147 to $88,139 on the 2026-27 scale. Applications close July 10 through the city and schools online portal.
Fisher Auto Parts, warehouse roles. The Staunton-headquartered parts distributor has multiple openings, including stocker, receiver, and inventory positions. Listings are on Indeed.
The Stauntonian is independent local journalism for the Queen City. Questions, tips, or a story we should be chasing? Write to Brad at brad@stauntonian.com.