Although several houses stood near the Staunton River crossing on U.S. Business 29 in the early nineteenth century, Hurt did not become a commercial center until after the Civil War. The town began as Staunton River, a small community near Ward's Road in the late eighteenth century, and travel there from Lynchburg once took nearly six hours by road before rail reduced the journey to two and a half hours. After the Civil War, the introduction of the railroad provided a regularly maintained connection between the Staunton River community and the farmland immediately north of the river, and the Southern Railway later included a stop there before continuing to Lynchburg or Danville. “Major” John L. Hurt, known regionally for making gunpowder throughout the Civil War, began building houses in the 1870s near his Clement Hill estate. By the end of his life, he was a major landholder and left the land that became Hurt to his nephew, Mr. John L. Hurt, Jr., along with the vision of creating a town. John Hurt, Jr. continued developing the community named for him through a methodical plan: he divided the land into lots of between a half acre and one acre, laid out streets fifty feet wide, sold lots to area families for $200 with two years to build a house, and repurchased unfinished lots for the same price to encourage construction. He also donated property for community buildings, including schools and churches. By 1954, the Virginia Record reported that John Hurt, Jr. had watched his dream of a community of homeowners come true. The town had grown to 1,250 residents when he died in 1964, and it was formally incorporated in 1967, fulfilling his wish that the community become an independent town.