Places – Fairfax County
While the suburbanization of Fairfax County began later than jurisdictions located in closer proximity to the nation’s capital, this phenomenon made a lasting impact on the county’s landscape too. For most of its early history, the county had functioned as the region’s breadbasket, sending fresh produce and dairy products to Alexandria and Washington, D.C. The county’s land use, however, began to shift to single-family housing by the 1920s in response to the expansion of the federal civil service. As a result, the county’s population jumped from 28,564 in 1930 to 275,002 in 1960. 1
Before new subdivisions could be built, Fairfax County first needed good roads. Earlier attempts at development along railroad and streetcar lines had met with mixed success, but the popularity of the automobile meant that land speculators could develop subdivisions wherever good roads were available. As early as 1914, county leaders attempted to improve road surfaces with assistance from the federal government. These improvements increased property values, so much so that Fairfax County’s farmers became more willing to sell their land to developers. 2
County leaders also needed to fund other infrastructure projects to support suburbanization. While the Virginia General Assembly empowered cities and towns to adopt land use zoning ordinances in the 1920s, counties had to wait until 1941. In the meantime, the County’s Board of Supervisors approved local procedures to regulate development in 1929, including a review process for the plat maps for all prospective subdivisions. That same year the Board required that developers install septic systems to manage household waste. Eight years later, county leaders approved the construction of the first sewage lines in the City of Fairfax, the county seat. 3
Clip from The Road to Happiness , 1924. This silent film by the Ford Motor Company attempted to persuade viewers to lobby local politicians to invest in road improvements. Fairfax County was the setting for the film.
As in other jurisdictions, real estate speculators turned to restrictive covenants in land deeds as a way to promote development. Real estate industry argued that inclusion of such covenants would protect property values, an issue of concern for Fairfax developers who planned to opening agricultural land to suburbanization. While not used in most of the county’s earliest subdivisions, restrictive covenants became commonplace by the 1920s. 4 These covenants played to racial and class-based anxieties, requiring certain building practices and aesthetics and excluding marginalized communities, especially African Americans. The use of racial covenants continued even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelley vs. Kraemer (1948) that they were unenforceable. Simultaneously, class-based covenants expanded, often functioning as de facto racial restrictions. 5
Partial Plat Map for Weyanoke, 1924. This subdivision is one of the earliest examples of racial- covenants in Fairfax County. It is located along present-day Little River Turnpike in Annandale. Courtesy, Fairfax Circuit Court Historic Records Center, City of Fairfax, VA.
Racial covenants were one of a variety of segregationist tools that made it difficult for Black families to own property in Fairfax County in the early-to-mid twentieth century. While racial covenants were pervasive, county leaders also used eminent domain to confiscate Black owned property for public works projects, such as schools and road widening. At the same time, Black families continued to be denied access to the county’s infrastructure projects that new, white-only subdivisions were given. These projects often included state-of-the-art public schools. 6
By the 1950s and 1960s, Fairfax County faced a housing crisis of its own making. County staff could no longer keep up with development and its infrastructure needs. At the same time, Black property owners faced displacement and mounting pressures either to move into hyper-segregated neighborhoods or out of the county. Agricultural lands, central to the county’s identity, were quickly disappearing. 7
Fairfax County would need a new vision of itself if it was going to retain a connection to its past, promote modern suburbs, and be more inclusive.
In their own words…
Read excerpts from oral histories to learn more about how Fairfax County residents remember their community.
1 Population: Fifteenth Census of the United States, vol. 3, Part 2, Vermont-Virginia (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1932); Negro Population, by County 1960 and 1950, Supplementary Report PC (SI)-52 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966).
2 Field Reports Vermont-Wyoming, 1913-1915, Box 99, General Correspondence, 1893-1916; Record Group 30, Office of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Archives, College Park, MD.
3 Board of Supervisors Minutes, Aug. 4, 1928; Jan. 7, 1929, Oct. 2, 1940, Feb. 5, 1941; Board and Committee Meeting Archive, Fairfax County, VA; accessed October 10, 2024, https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/board-supervisors-meetings-archive.
4 The Langley Land Company in present-day McLean was the first to use both race-based covenants. Fairfax Deed S-8-477 (1920), Fairfax Circuit Court Historic Records Center, City of Fairfax, VA.
5 Briggs and Hooper’s Addition to Chesterbrook Woods is the last known subdivision in Fairfax County that inserted a racial covenant. Fairfax Deed 1534-82 (1957), Fairfax Circuit Court Historic Records Center, City of Fairfax, VA.
6 Tom Shoop, A Place Called Ilda: Race and Resilience at a Northern Virginia Crossroads (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2024).
7 Nan Netherton, et al., Fairfax County, Virginia: A History (Fairfax, VA: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, 1978), 549-560, 630-652; E. B. Henderson, “History of the Fairfax County Branch of the NAACP” (October 1965), folder 1, box 1, Sadgwar Family Papers, Washington Historical Society, Washington, D.C.