Groveton

Images of America: Virginia

by Charlotte Brown

Groveton is located in Fairfax County, three miles south of Alexandria on what is now known as Richmond Highway. The original property owners of the Groveton area were George Mason, Sampson Darrell, and George Washington. Early family homes that are still standing include Huntley, Stone Mansion, Wilkinson, Sherwood Farm, and Briery Farm. Between the 1880s and early 1900s, Groveton was home to several orchards and farms. Dairy farms, such as Clifton, Groveton, Sherwood, and Hybla Valley Farms, made up the Alexandria Milk Association for which Groveton was known. By the mid-1900s, the farms gave way to businesses, churches, residential housing, and two airfields. Today, Groveton has grown to become a diverse neighborhood and is experiencing economic growth due to the Fort Belvoir expansion.

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2013

Reviews

[Tammy Mannarino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlotte Brown does a fantastic job summarizing the history of the Groveton area through the families, schools, churches, and businesses of the area. Many histories focus on events or only on individuals of National or State importance, but the beauty of this book is that Brown has preserved the names of individuals and businesses that would otherwise be lost to time.

[Brigid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an Acadia local history book - they are all formulaic, and honestly that's part of their charm. I have no idea how much of the formatting is dictated by the publisher and how much push back the author can possibly give.

It was interesting to put photos and faces to the names of the streets in my community, but I wish the author had given more backstory to each family, although I suspect the backstory gets a little uncomfortable with all those Confederate soldiers lurking in the families' pasts. Nonetheless the captions tend to be lists of who is in the photo with clauses explaining how they were related to other people. I wish there had been a place where the author could have included a Who's Who of the major players before getting into the photographs and postcards from the area. Also, there was a tendency to not explain where things were located until the very end of the sections about them. For example, there are several pages about The Dixie Pig - a restaurant that has been closed since 1996 - and the first confirmation of its former location is in the very last sentence about it. For all of the former places it would have been very helpful to either start with the location, or better yet include a current map at the start of each section and pinpoint the places referenced. Additionally, it would be nice to see a timeline for some of the intersections that have had numerous buildings over the years. There are quite a few places that have been "demolished for a mixed use development" which sounds like the County came in and destroyed century old buildings, but based on the number of things listed as being on some of those blocks I think it must have been a series of demos and rebuilds - and there's a good chance at least a few of those demos were for buildings in disrepair.

Overall though, this is a quick read and provides some historical insight into the community.