Interesting article from 1958 about the Town of Fairfax expanding to include CCH (and other areas as well).

Not specific to CCH, but wow.  Population of Fairfax County, 1870 – 12,952.  By 2017, according to Google, 1.148 million. 

From the Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington published in 1878.

Ever wonder why so many things are named “Daniels” around our neighborhood?   

OK, probably not. I was curious though, so I asked some questions in the Virginia Room at the Fairfax City Library. Elaine McRey kindly provided a wealth of information.  

The library has maps back to 1760 that document the landowners in the County. Highlighted in yellow below is the land parcel owned by John O’Daniel, who probably inherited or bought it from William O’Daniel. This parcel would eventually become Fairfax City. (Or at least a good bit of it. It seems Frances Summers owned a piece too, but that’s a story for another day.)

So why isn’t everything named “O’Daniel”? According to a video posted on the Daniels Run Elementary School’s website, William’s ancestors dropped the Celtic “O” from the name in the early 1800’s.

So – shouldn’t all the signs around town read Daniel’s (with an apostrophe)?

I asked the staff of the Fairfax County Library if they had any material related to our neighborhood. They were very responsive, passing on a plethora of information. It will take some time to go through it all.

Here’s one tidbit.

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Fairfax County periodically takes aerial photos and makes them available on their web site.

 Fairfax County Historical Imagery Viewer

Our neighborhood is located in grids 57-2 and 58-1.

I did a search using the address of Fairfax High, then viewed the photo from 1953.  The red dot on the picture below marks the location of the school. Fairfax Circle is visible in the upper-right.

Our neighborhood was mostly open fields (part of a dairy farm, I believe).

Checking the “1960” box makes our neighborhood magically appear!

Pretty cool.