- THE SUNDAY STAR. WASHINGTON, T>. C.. MAT 23. 1927-PART 2. 11 ,I‘. 1 \ J Arlington County Envisions Progressive City in ' • New Near Future I a I ' Rapid Development SCENES IN ARLINGTON COUNTY, CAPITAL’S NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR ON THE SOUTH Earl Indirectly Gave jln Homes Has ~ Name to Section ••• ** Followed. World 7“ . -t. -p.- *¦••;:***n; • * • ' In Stuart " " * .< .. War. '/V ¦ .. * Era. .... y I**" .... .. ’ Has Many Gardens. Past Aristocratic. ; Area Is Almost En- Wilderness and * tirely Suburban. Rougk Characters Industries Reigned But ) jfc Sought. Recently. *-...'1 11 BY THOMAS R. HENRY hardly can he said to he developing Arlington County, Virginia, is the as population centers. There la the Mra. 1927 of Washington’s suburbs. old village of Barcroft, on the Columbia ; Pike half between t . The gawky little girl next <loor about way the High- .Quite suddenly has stepped out as way Bridge and Annandale, in Fairfax ’• very charming young housewife County. Previous to 1910 there was who steps on the gas, cuts her hair a station there of the Washington & s ’: »hort, plays golf and tennis, puffs Ohio Railroad, later taken over by lan occasional cigarette and captures the Washington & Old Dominion, and . -the hearts of all who look upon her. a mill on Four Mile Run operated by jShe is a child of the age, delighting a Dr. Barcroft. In the latter year Jin bright colors and shattered tra- Barcroft sold the mill and a subdivi- ditions. Altogether she Is a whole- sion was financed by Mrs. Abbie O. some and energetic young lady. She Fox which has developed into the pres- ils the life of the party with such ent village. companions as matronly Montgom- Arlington, on the same road, Is the > ery County and those two delight- only village in the county which is ful, white-haired grandmothers, Fair- not the direct result of a real estate - fa* and Prince Georges Counties. development. Fifty years ago there ‘ Lively Mrs. Arlington has no old- was a schoolhouse there with a few fashioned Ideas to curdle her delight houses grouped around it. It has in mere living. been built up house by house. The * She grew up a neglected child. The community made little real progress neighbors rather turned up their until the World War sent Government noses at her in the days, not long clerks out of crowded Washington to past, when she was playing with seek lower rents and purer air in the ! her rag dolls and making mud pies suburbs. on the Potomac banks. Few saw Rosslyn, at the Virginia end of Key the beauty of complexion and feature Bridge, is now a thriving business tinder the grime on her face. The community with a bank, numerous great alteration came during the hec- atores, and the offices of the Washing- tfc days Immediately after the World ton & Old Dominion Railroad. It ia War when the so-called ‘‘younger becoming a manufacturing center. J generation” type In American life Probably it ia the oldest settlement waa established. in the county and takes its name from the Rosslyn farm in the neigh- Plenty of Cash. borhood, owned before the Civil War A alick-halred city chap named by a Gen. Ross. There was a village “Subdivision” fell in love with the there, called West Haven, during the girl, courted her and married her. war. plenty of He waa & banker’s son with One Incorporated ready cash to lavish on his bride. Town. He bought her silk dresses and sil- Arllngt' n County has only one in- ver dancing shoes. She had her own corporated tow’n, Potomac, near Alex- ~ ~ andria. This * car and a spick-and-span bungalow ‘ , is the result of three and a sleeping =\*J=rr- subdivisions opened by a New York with a bathroom the First. The family had been ruined Washington’s survey marks, set down Heights which appealed to him be- borhood used to pick up pailfuls of are being reared —— —, concern almost simultaneously with porch. Their babies in the Rebellion. The best position Sir when the District borders were ( ; cause of the splendid scenio possibili- bullets there with which to make according to pamphlets issued by the tho first development at Ballston. John was able to obtain was that of marked, still can be found in the ties it offered. He purchased it at a slugs to shoot birds. There were two Potomac has Children’s Bureau. military of the Isle of Wight, county. developed rapidly since remembering governor price that seemed exorbitant in those houses near the town site—the Nes- the war and has its own Gay Mrs. Arlington, dissipated life shocked the The land was thickly forested. Set- days, although town govern- childhood, where his it would be extremely meth farmhouse and the home of ment and police system. her poverty-stricken con- inhabitants so greatly that they asked tlers were few. There were occasional cheap today. Clarence "Welch. fesses to an Impulse some- direction Alex- The subdivisions are served by the Irresistible for his recall. fine houses in the of Admiral Rixey clung to the property By 1900 the foundations of the Washington-Alexandria times to stick out her tongue at her Culpeper recalled the ill-defined Vir- andria, but elsewhere the Arlington street railway. drive her through discouraging years. The present Clarendon had been laid. The They may eventually become sedate older neighbors and ginia grants to his father and sought mansion was the one notable land- longer he lived there the more dis- Spanish-American War had produced a part car, 1927 model, past their homes farmhouses were of the Alexandria corporation. The new to have them renewed, with the idea mark. The few tinct became his vision of an Arling- a suburban boom somewhat of the community *just to arouse their envy. But for that some little badly needed revenue rudely constructed and the land was life is closely associated time ton County which would constitute an same nature, although of far less with that of the larger city—much all that, she spends most of her might be extracted from the new land. not well adapted to agriculture. It intrinsic part of the National Capital. proportions, than that which duties and came more closely than with the Clarendon- at home with household Through the intercession of his did not appear that the slowly pro- He was obliged to ride horseback to later to the environs of Washington , church ' ¦WSSIjIiSriS Ballston-Cherrydale *he Is a regular attendant at friend Bennet, he was given a royal gressing city of Washington ever and from Washington through a coun- with the World War. population and although she may A few Gov- business center. *on the Sabbath, patent by Charles to the entire north- would engulf this rough, if pictur- try infested with “bad men” as pic- ernment clerks began to take up to the golf links as soon as serv- It was There are some curious old wills ’ go ern neck of Virginia. esque, territory. ceded back turesque as those of the middle border. homes in Clarendon. Other subdi- in the ices are Her' home life is as This act of personal ends by act of Congress. county courthouse which give over. that friendship There was, for instance, the appro- visions were started in the neighbor- .a picturesque touch to the early daya. substantial and respectable as the Earl of Arlington’s personal con- The Arlington estate was inherited below tbe hood, of the land titles coming Grandmother Fairfax, although priately named valley just most The most valued is the parchment of her nection with the New World. Culpeper from George Washington Parke Cus- present Lyon Village toward Wash- from Dr. A. A. E. Taylor of St. It the stiff corsets of tradi- tis by his only daughter, Mary Anne document made in England in 1813 toy hasn't made two brief visits to his palatinate. ington on the Lee Highway—"Dead Louis, who had come into the prop- which Sarah Fairfax notifies to hamper it. His rapacity tended anger Randolph Custis, who had married, “all and tion to the set- Man’s Hollow.” It was a place of erty through marriage. singular, the in Christ” Arlington County. Just across the tlers. There was world of differ- some say against the wishes of her difficult faithful of the a hold-ups and murders. It is to draw a line today bequest of her property Potomac from the National Capital, is ence between this visionless knight father, a young lieutenant of Engi- between Clarendon to Rev. area. It is, ac- 40 and Ballston. Bryan, Lord Fairfax, her nephew. square miles In and the other great royal proprietor neers named Robert E. Lee, the de- Years Ago. They run into each For all cording to the local Chamber of Com- scendant of a distinguished Virginia other. Among the most curious is the last in America—George Calvert, baron of This*was years ago. There practical purposes there is one of Harry the smallest county in Virginia Baltimore. From family, but with no financial prospects 40 was testament Piper, “merchant merce, Culpeper the grant no means of communication with the thickly settled community running of Alexandria,” and, with one exception, in the United descended to and was confirmed in beyond his Army pay. In any event, with its clause: “My is Capital. Dr. Rixey, who had fre- from Fort Myer Heights through faithful servant Charles hath served States. All of Its western portion the person of his grandson, Thomas the father's will stipulated that she Ballston, overlooking dome quent night calls to the bedsides of with its business center in me long and I hope from my treat- on elevated land the Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, who was was to have control of the property Clarendon.