Located in the heart of Virginia's famous Piedmont Hunt Country, Delaplane was originally known as Piedmont Station, a small village formed around a stop on the Manassas Gap Railroad. In 1874, it was renamed in honor of W. E. Delaplane,[1] a prominent businessman who generously restored operations at the local general store that faltered in the aftermath of the American Civil War.
Delaplane encompasses some of North America's oldest fox hunting territory, and from 1932 to 1945, Delaplane's Cobbler Mountain range hosted many of General George S. Patton's fabled escapades with his Cobbler Fox Hounds club. Patton was Master of Foxhounds until his military transfer to Hawaii in 1935, and the club was disbanded ten years later upon receiving news of his untimely death in Heidelberg, Germany. Today, Piedmont Fox Hounds (based in The Plains), the oldest fox hunting club in the United States, still hunts Delaplane's rustic, stone-wall-lined terrain; as do Orange County Hunt (based in Middleburg) and Old Dominion Hounds.
In 1975, local resident and philanthropist Paul Mellon donated a 1,132-acre (4,580,000 m2; 458 ha) tract of land in Delaplane to the Commonwealth of Virginia creating Sky Meadows State Park, which hosts the Delaplane Strawberry Festival every Memorial Day. The tract's previous owner, the late Sir Robert Hadow, was a Consul General from Great Britain and originally named the parcel Skye Farm after the island in Scotland which the area reminded him of. In 1991, Paul Mellon presented an additional 462-acre adjoining tract as a gift to the park. This tract, renamed the Lost Mountain Bridle Trail Area, was originally surveyed by George Washington and purchased by Washington from his client Lord Fairfax. More recently, in his memoirs, Virginia Senator John Warner fondly recalled childhood summers spent working at Hill Crest Farm in Delaplane while on break from St. Albans School in nearby Washington, D.C.
Today, the village of Delaplane remains home to Emmanuel Episcopal Church, an antique shop, and a working post office; with nearby towns of Upperville, Middleburg, and Marshall providing commercial services to Delaplane's widely spaced residents.
Although Delaplane's agricultural community is historically associated with champion Black Angus cattle, Delaplane today comprises almost two-thirds of the Middleburg American Viticultural Area,[1] with the Delaplane, VA ZIP Code encompassing more working vineyards than any other outside of Sonoma Valley, CA.
