Pennrose history

When the mansion was completed in 1817 it was named Mount Washington, though it was later renamed Arlington House, after the original Custis estate in Northhampton County, Virginia.

Services were conducted by students from the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria. It was built around 1825 by Custis for his family, neighbors and servants.

By the time Alexandria County was retroceded to Virginia in 1846 by the United States Congress because of jurisdictional and payment issues for the Alexandria Canal, the Columbia Turnpike corridor showed signs of increasing development.

In 1850, the Columbia Schoolhouse, a one-story wood frame building, was constructed on the corner of South Wayne Street and Columbia Turnpike in Penrose as a private schoolhouse.

In August 1861, Fort Craig was constructed at the current Penrose location of South Courthouse Road and South 4th Street and became a part of the Arlington Line.

There, Freedman's Village was built and formally dedicated on December 4, 1863.

They built their own homes here, relocating with their families around 1879, and improved the area with substantial construction of freestanding dwellings.

In 1882, the neighborhood was ultimately platted as the Butler-Holmes subdivision.

A Washington-Virginia Railway Company trolley on the Nauck Line (circa 1909).

In 1913, three towers were erected by the United States Navy on South Courthouse Road and South 8th Street in Penrose as part of an effort to establish a worldwide communication network.

In 1914, the same year the war began, Gladys married a count in Belgium, entering her into the ranks of the Belgian nobility class.

In 1926, there were approximately 70 houses in Penrose.

During the Great Depression, Spencer Penrose helped finance the Fountain Valley School, which was created in 1929.