Arlington County, VA history

In 1801, under an act of Congress, our patch became Alexandria County, District of Columbia, part of the new federal capital.

Upon inheriting property from his father John Parke Custis in 1781, George Washington Parke Custis built a home for himself and his wife in 1802, naming the estate “Arlington,” after the Custis family seat in Northampton County, VA.

Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, married Robert E. Lee in 1831, and Lee lived with his wife and children on the Arlington Estate for a number of years, but he never owned it.

In 1847, at the request of the local residents, Congress retroceded Alexandria County to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Union troops rapidly occupied Alexandria County in May of 1861, but there were only skirmishes between Union and Confederate troops due to the “Arlington Line” of Union forts which defended the District of Columbia.

Arlington officially became a National Cemetery on June 15, 1864, by order of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

In 1870, Alexandria County and the City of Alexandria were formally separated and regular elections were held by a post-Civil War government.

In 1871, a post-Civil War state law allowed residents of the City of Alexandria to separate their policy prerogatives from those of rural Alexandria County.

To remedy this undemocratic system, the Local Government Act of 1888 established county councils, with members elected by local residents, to take over the legislative and executive duties of the magistrates.

The Arlington Historical Museum occupies the former Hume School, built in 1891 and the oldest school building in Arlington.

However, by 1900, Alexandria County had eleven public schools.

1, 1919, fete honoring recently returned veterans of World War I, held at the Clarendon court house.

Above: Aerial photo of Clarendon Circle, facing west, soon after 1920.

Garrett in 1922, the Virginia Supreme Court formally cemented Arlington's status, ruling Arlington as a “continuous, contiguous and homogenous community.”

In 1924, Arlington had its first delegate in the House, Charles T. Jesse, where it had previously shared representation with one or more jurisdictions.

Hoover Airport opened in 1926, making it the first airport in the County

Arlington’s form of government, the County Manager plan, was implemented in 1932.

Beginning in 1934, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) insured mortgages which were used to build garden apartment developments, among which included Colonial Village, Buckingham Village, and Cambridge Courts.

In 1935, the County adopted a new street naming system to accompany the new County Manager form of government, which eliminated many duplicate names, retained historic names, and set a precedent for future naming practices.

In September 1941, ground was broken for the Pentagon as headquarters for the Nation’s armed forces.

Pentagon under construction, April 18, 1942

Finally, on February 2, 1959, Arlington Public Schools admitted four Black pupils into the previously all-white Stratford Junior High School without incident, the first school district in Virginia to do so.

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland an administrative reorganization in 1973 replaced that country’s six administrative counties and two county boroughs with 26 single-tier, or “unitary,” administrative districts.

After 1974 in England and Wales, administrative counties provided police and fire services, education, social welfare services, public transport, traffic regulation, consumer protection, libraries, and some highways and parks.

In 1975 the 34 administrative counties of Scotland were replaced by nine administrative regions, each subdivided into a number of districts.

The community thrived for a number of years, but when the Metro Orange Line from Rosslyn to Ballston opened at the end of 1979, things gradually began to decline.

In the end, after some modifications were made, the highway was built and opened in 1982.

In 1996 the eight administrative counties of Wales were replaced by 22 new unitary counties and unitary county boroughs.

In 2009, nine new unitary authorities were established, bringing the total to 56—including the Isles of Scilly, which has a special status.

Perry, Nancy. “Eminent Domain Destroys a Community: Leveling East Arlington to Make Way for the Pentagon.” Urban Geography (December 2015).

— Charlie Clark, October 2019