This story first appeared in the Museum's Spring 2013 newsletter, which had limited distribution. Since then, the name has been changed to Franconia District from Lee District. Likewise, Lee District Park and Recreation Center have been changed to Franconia District Park and Recreation Center. Likewise, the park in Monticello Woods that was named Franconia has been changed to Grove Point Park (located off Thomas Drive in Monticello Woods) to avoid conflict with the District Park. In the interest of historic accuracy, the names have not been updated.
Walhaven Gravel Pit – 1920s-1930s
For decades, farming was a way of life in Franconia. The land produced food for the table and money to pay for family needs. That was true through the Civil War, two World Wars, Reconstruction, the Depression, the discovery of electricity and the automobile. Things that were grown on the farm added to the bounty. What was hidden below the surface would produce a revolution in the way local landowners viewed their property.
Every farmer in Franconia was aware of the sand and gravel that lurked under the topsoil. All they had to do was try to dig a basement, or, in the “real” old days, a privy. The going was tough once you hit the gravel, rocks and the sand that surrounded it. Only after World War II, when economic growth took off in the Washington, D.C. area, did some begin to realize they were sitting on a new way of providing for their families.
The geological formations under some of Franconia produced much of the aggregate, as it is known in the industry, to build the concrete buildings, bridges and roads that began to spring up like weeds in the Washington area. Beginning in the late 1940s, much of the material used to construct new federal buildings, the Capital Beltway, the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the early office buildings in Rosslyn, Tyson’s Corner and downtown Washington came from Franconia.
For the most part, landowners leased their properties to large concrete, construction and trucking companies that competed for the right to extract the precious sand and gravel that was being gobbled up by the builders. Franconia became a collection of gravel pits where there once had been rows of corn, vegetable gardens, and horses for both work and pleasure amid a quiet country atmosphere. Instead, the steam shovels and bulldozers clawed at the earth and the trucks rolled by on nearby roads built for much less traffic.
Today, most people would not recognize the areas that once were working gravel pits. Residential, office and retail development as well as parks have taken the place of the pits. Examples are the residential and commercial areas of Kingstowne and Manchester Lakes. Also, communities such as Lansdowne, Amberleigh, Franconia Commons, Van Dorn Village, Brookland Estates, Loftridge, Wellington Green, and Fleet Industrial Park were once gravel pits. The new Wegman’s at Telegraph and Beulah is rising on what once was part of a sand and gravel operation. Lee District Park, Beulah Park and Franconia Park were sand and gravel extraction sites before being purchased by the Fairfax County Park Authority using citizen approved long-term bonds (mortgages).
The largest sand and gravel-mining operation was in the Kingstowne-Manchester Lakes area. All the current houses and commercial areas are situated on former extraction sites. Kingstowne, for example, was built on what was known as the disturbed area while remaining trees were left intact. Manchester and its neighboring communities generally were built on land reclaimed from sand and gravel operations. One of the first was operated by Bill Clem on land where Fleet Industrial Park is now located. There were pits between the railroad tracks and what is now Springfield Forest as well as the property on which Springfield Mall was built. In those days Franconia generally was located, at least in people’s minds, as being between Telegraph Road on the east, Springfield on the west and the intersection of Beulah Road and Telegraph on the south. Newington and Accotink were neighbors on the south, with Alexandria on the north.
There was a number of operators in the Kingstowne area, the largest of which was Northern Virginia Sand and Gravel, which operated in tandem with Virginia Concrete. Clarence Jones, George Dodd, Marshall Gorham, Addie Tyler and others were involved in the area. At the corner of Beulah Road and Telegraph Road was the Gailliot property, the site of a poultry operation during World War II, then a gravel pit, then a landfill and now a burgeoning commercial center with a golf course built on the landfill. What is now Beulah Park was an extension of the large mining operation in that area of the original intersection of Beulah Road and Hayfield Road.
Vera Gorham recalls that most of the operators, including her husband Marshall, mined the gravel and then sold it to trucking companies who hauled it to the construction sites. Many of the drivers came from as far away as Piney River, about halfway between Charlottesville and Lynchburg. Some were relatives of Cockeye and Kirk Campbell, who lived there before they moved to Franconia and started hauling gravel. Vera says the drivers would stay in a big house near the intersection of Hayfield Road and Beulah Road during the week and go home on weekends. A popular spot for dining was Arrington’s Store and Restaurant at the same intersection. Much of the property there was owned by Charles Arrington, after whom the street between Beulah and Manchester Drive is named.
Lester Dove recalls gravel pits on both sides of South Van Dorn Street. On the west was the area now developed as Van Dorn Village and Runnymeade. On the other side a road led back to where Brookland Estates is today. Lester says gravel also was mined where Franconia Baptist Church is located. He should know as he worked at many of the operations. Northern Virginia Sand and Gravel mined a large area behind what is now Clermont Park.
When the Virginia portion of the Beltway was built in the late 1950s and 1960s, much of the gravel came from what was known as the Kronish Borrow Pit located between what is now Monticello Woods and the railroad, just a stone’s throw from the actual road. After the original four-lane Beltway was built, the Virginia Department of Transportation, as it was known then, sold the land to the Fairfax County Park Authority and it was named Franconia Park. Later when the Beltway was widened to eight lanes, more gravel was needed so a deal was struck to allow VDOT to extract more gravel in exchange for restoring the land and building the original fields and parking lots.
The area of Lee District Park covered by playing fields also once was a gravel pit. Like Kingstowne, the treed area of the park did not contain gravel and therefore was left in its natural state. A phenomenon called “marine clay” lurks below the surface in a large part of both areas, so mining was not an option. The clay shrinks and swells according to the water table and, as developers and the County learned, is not a good place to dig for gravel or build structures without extensive subterranean pylons and/or retaining walls. The County bought what is now Lee District Park at a bankruptcy auction.
Joe Alexander grew up on Beulah Road and there were few, if any gravel pits in the neighborhood when he was in high school. He went away to what is now Virginia Tech in 1947 and it seemed to Joe by the time he finished college there were gravel pits everywhere. Just over a decade later, after a tour of duty with the Air Force in Korea, he represented Franconia on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and was in the center of a controversy about how to control the expanding pits.
Gravel pits were beginning to threaten nearby homes and farms. Les Dorson, who had moved into Walhaven and become a community leader, saw the need for the establishment of some controls over the gravel operations. As Joe remembers, people were scared their homes were threatened as the pits began to close in on property lines. “There were cases of a 25-foot or more drop at the edge of people’s property,” Joe said. “We had to put a stop to that.”
Working with other members of the Board such as John Parrish and Herb Harris from Mount Vernon, Happy Bradley from western Fairfax and Chairman Fred Babson, Joe was able to put together a Natural Resources Ordinance that established setbacks from the property lines and restoration of the mined area. Joe credits Les for his work in organizing area citizens to help convince the Board of Supervisors to adopt the ordinance. Les’ community efforts are memorialized by a plaque on a huge rock from a nearby gravel pit that stands in front of the Franconia Governmental Center.
Most long-time residents of Franconia and the Beulah Road area spent many hours of their youth in the gravel pits, playing, courting, partying, biking (both pedal and motorized) and other activities. Some even went swimming in the ponds located in what is now Kingstowne Park.
Every farmer in Franconia was aware of the sand and gravel that lurked under the topsoil. All they had to do was try to dig a basement, or, in the “real” old days, a privy. The going was tough once you hit the gravel, rocks and the sand that surrounded it. Only after World War II, when economic growth took off in the Washington, D.C. area, did some begin to realize they were sitting on a new way of providing for their families.
The geological formations under some of Franconia produced much of the aggregate, as it is known in the industry, to build the concrete buildings, bridges and roads that began to spring up like weeds in the Washington area. Beginning in the late 1940s, much of the material used to construct new federal buildings, the Capital Beltway, the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the early office buildings in Rosslyn, Tyson’s Corner and downtown Washington came from Franconia.
For the most part, landowners leased their properties to large concrete, construction and trucking companies that competed for the right to extract the precious sand and gravel that was being gobbled up by the builders. Franconia became a collection of gravel pits where there once had been rows of corn, vegetable gardens, and horses for both work and pleasure amid a quiet country atmosphere. Instead, the steam shovels and bulldozers clawed at the earth and the trucks rolled by on nearby roads built for much less traffic.
Today, most people would not recognize the areas that once were working gravel pits. Residential, office and retail development as well as parks have taken the place of the pits. Examples are the residential and commercial areas of Kingstowne and Manchester Lakes. Also, communities such as Lansdowne, Amberleigh, Franconia Commons, Van Dorn Village, Brookland Estates, Loftridge, Wellington Green, and Fleet Industrial Park were once gravel pits. The new Wegman’s at Telegraph and Beulah is rising on what once was part of a sand and gravel operation. Lee District Park, Beulah Park and Franconia Park were sand and gravel extraction sites before being purchased by the Fairfax County Park Authority using citizen approved long-term bonds (mortgages).
The largest sand and gravel-mining operation was in the Kingstowne-Manchester Lakes area. All the current houses and commercial areas are situated on former extraction sites. Kingstowne, for example, was built on what was known as the disturbed area while remaining trees were left intact. Manchester and its neighboring communities generally were built on land reclaimed from sand and gravel operations. One of the first was operated by Bill Clem on land where Fleet Industrial Park is now located. There were pits between the railroad tracks and what is now Springfield Forest as well as the property on which Springfield Mall was built. In those days Franconia generally was located, at least in people’s minds, as being between Telegraph Road on the east, Springfield on the west and the intersection of Beulah Road and Telegraph on the south. Newington and Accotink were neighbors on the south, with Alexandria on the north.
There was a number of operators in the Kingstowne area, the largest of which was Northern Virginia Sand and Gravel, which operated in tandem with Virginia Concrete. Clarence Jones, George Dodd, Marshall Gorham, Addie Tyler and others were involved in the area. At the corner of Beulah Road and Telegraph Road was the Gailliot property, the site of a poultry operation during World War II, then a gravel pit, then a landfill and now a burgeoning commercial center with a golf course built on the landfill. What is now Beulah Park was an extension of the large mining operation in that area of the original intersection of Beulah Road and Hayfield Road.
Vera Gorham recalls that most of the operators, including her husband Marshall, mined the gravel and then sold it to trucking companies who hauled it to the construction sites. Many of the drivers came from as far away as Piney River, about halfway between Charlottesville and Lynchburg. Some were relatives of Cockeye and Kirk Campbell, who lived there before they moved to Franconia and started hauling gravel. Vera says the drivers would stay in a big house near the intersection of Hayfield Road and Beulah Road during the week and go home on weekends. A popular spot for dining was Arrington’s Store and Restaurant at the same intersection. Much of the property there was owned by Charles Arrington, after whom the street between Beulah and Manchester Drive is named.
Lester Dove recalls gravel pits on both sides of South Van Dorn Street. On the west was the area now developed as Van Dorn Village and Runnymeade. On the other side a road led back to where Brookland Estates is today. Lester says gravel also was mined where Franconia Baptist Church is located. He should know as he worked at many of the operations. Northern Virginia Sand and Gravel mined a large area behind what is now Clermont Park.
When the Virginia portion of the Beltway was built in the late 1950s and 1960s, much of the gravel came from what was known as the Kronish Borrow Pit located between what is now Monticello Woods and the railroad, just a stone’s throw from the actual road. After the original four-lane Beltway was built, the Virginia Department of Transportation, as it was known then, sold the land to the Fairfax County Park Authority and it was named Franconia Park. Later when the Beltway was widened to eight lanes, more gravel was needed so a deal was struck to allow VDOT to extract more gravel in exchange for restoring the land and building the original fields and parking lots.
The area of Lee District Park covered by playing fields also once was a gravel pit. Like Kingstowne, the treed area of the park did not contain gravel and therefore was left in its natural state. A phenomenon called “marine clay” lurks below the surface in a large part of both areas, so mining was not an option. The clay shrinks and swells according to the water table and, as developers and the County learned, is not a good place to dig for gravel or build structures without extensive subterranean pylons and/or retaining walls. The County bought what is now Lee District Park at a bankruptcy auction.
Joe Alexander grew up on Beulah Road and there were few, if any gravel pits in the neighborhood when he was in high school. He went away to what is now Virginia Tech in 1947 and it seemed to Joe by the time he finished college there were gravel pits everywhere. Just over a decade later, after a tour of duty with the Air Force in Korea, he represented Franconia on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and was in the center of a controversy about how to control the expanding pits.
Gravel pits were beginning to threaten nearby homes and farms. Les Dorson, who had moved into Walhaven and become a community leader, saw the need for the establishment of some controls over the gravel operations. As Joe remembers, people were scared their homes were threatened as the pits began to close in on property lines. “There were cases of a 25-foot or more drop at the edge of people’s property,” Joe said. “We had to put a stop to that.”
Working with other members of the Board such as John Parrish and Herb Harris from Mount Vernon, Happy Bradley from western Fairfax and Chairman Fred Babson, Joe was able to put together a Natural Resources Ordinance that established setbacks from the property lines and restoration of the mined area. Joe credits Les for his work in organizing area citizens to help convince the Board of Supervisors to adopt the ordinance. Les’ community efforts are memorialized by a plaque on a huge rock from a nearby gravel pit that stands in front of the Franconia Governmental Center.
Most long-time residents of Franconia and the Beulah Road area spent many hours of their youth in the gravel pits, playing, courting, partying, biking (both pedal and motorized) and other activities. Some even went swimming in the ponds located in what is now Kingstowne Park.
________________________________________
For previous stories, go to franconiamuseum.org and click on history blog.
FRANCONIA REMEMBERS
This is one of the Franconia Museum’s occasional articles highlighting the area’s history. If you would like a friend to receive these FREE articles, contact us at franconia.museum.newsletter@gmail.com Membership is also encouraged, so that we can continue our work. The Museum is in the Franconia Government Center, currently located at 6121 Franconia Road, Alexandria, Virginia 22310. The hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. The Museum is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, as approved by the Internal Revenue Service.
Join or contribute to the Franconia Museum electronically by accessing Franconiamuseum.org and clicking on Become a Member. You can also join the old-fashioned way by mailing a check made payable to the Franconia Museum to 6121 Franconia Road, Alexandria, VA, 22310. Levels of memberships and giving are presented below.
The Museum will soon move into new quarters at the relocated Franconia Government Center on Beulah Street, near its intersection with the Franconia-Springfield Parkway. We need your help to make the move, so please consider making a contribution or becoming a member for 2025. Contributions in excess of the membership fee are encouraged. The Museum is a volunteer effort, but there are also costs for insurance of our artifacts, printing and postage. Please help!
2025 MEMBERSHIP DRIVE – PLEASE JOIN OR RENEW
Join us in celebrating our 24th year of preserving and protecting the history of our unique community. Our collections are growing, and we are starting to purchase electronic equipment for displays that will be available in the new Franconia Govt. Center coming in 2025 next to Lane Elementary and Beulah Park. Make the move with us by becoming a member! Additional donations are especially welcome! We are a tax-exempt, volunteer organization. There are no fund-raising costs! Come see us and learn about our past, present and future! Join us as a new member, renew your 2024 membership, or become a Lifetime or Founding member. We need to fill vacancies on our Board of Directors, and need volunteers to help man the Museum on Mon-Tues-Wed-Sat.
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