Place Information
|
Arlington County is an urban county of about 200,000 residents in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the U.S., directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Originally part of the District of Columbia, the land now comprising the county was retroceded to Virginia in a July 9, 1846 act of Congress that took effect in 1847. At 26 square miles, it is geographically the smallest County in the United States. It is the location of Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon.
History
Alexandria County, District centerOnce part of Fairfax County in the Virginia Colony, the area that contains Arlington County was ceded to the U.S. government by the Commonwealth of Virginia to a surveying team that Andrew Ellicott led placed them in their present locations. In 1791, the U.S. Congress established the final limits of the federal territory that would house the nation's capital as a square with 10 miles on each side, the maximum area permitted by Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution. However, the legislation that established these limits contained a provision that prevented the U.S. government from locating any federal offices within the portion of the territory that Virginia had ceded. When Congress moved to the new District of Columbia in 1801, it enacted legislation that divided the District into two counties: (1) the county of Washington, which lay on the east side of the Potomac River, and (2) the county of Alexandria, which lay on the west side of the River. Alexandria County contained at the time a rural area that included the present Arlington County, as well as the urbanized town of Alexandria (now "Old Town" Alexandria), a port that was located on the Potomac River in the southeastern part of the present City of Alexandria. Although some residents of Alexandria County had earlier hoped, for better or for worse, to benefit from the land sales and increased business activity that the federal capital's location might inspire, this benefit failed to appear. Instead, political and economic competition grew with the town of Georgetown, a port that was located in Washington County adjacent to the capital city (Washington City). As the U.S. government could not establish any federal offices in the County, and as the economically important Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O Canal) on the north side of the Potomac River favored Georgetown, Alexandria's economy stagnated. This stagnation worsened as some of Georgetown's residents opposed federal efforts to maintain the Alexandria Canal, which connected the C&O Canal in Georgetown to Alexandria's port. Further, as they were residents of the District of Columbia, Alexandria's citizens had no representation in Congress and could not vote in federal elections. In addition, Alexandria had become a port and market for the slave trade. As there was increasing talk of abolishing slavery in the nation's capital, some Alexandrians feared that the local economy would suffer if the federal government abolished slavery in the District of Columbia. Simultaneously, there arose in Virginia an active abolitionist movement that created a division on the question of slavery in Virginia's General Assembly (Later, during the Civil War, Virginia's division on the slavery issue contributed to the formation of the state of West Virginia by its most anti-slavery counties). Pro-slavery Virginians recognized that Alexandria County could provide two new representatives who favored slavery in the General Assembly if the County joined the Commonwealth. As a result, a movement grew to separate Alexandria County from the District of Columbia. After a referendum, the county's residents petitioned the U.S. Congress and the Virginia legislature to permit the County to return to Virginia. The area was retroceded to Virginia on July 9, 1846. In 1852, the independent City of Alexandria was incorporated from a portion of Alexandria County. This created an ambiguity, as two separate legal entities had similar names. Alexandria County eventually renamed itself in 1920 to Arlington County. The county's new name derived from that of Arlington National Cemetery, whose own name had derived from that of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's former home, Arlington House, which since the Civil War had been located within the cemetery. Arlington National CemeteryArlington National Cemetery is an American military cemetery established during the American Civil War on the grounds of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's home, Arlington House (also known as the Custis-Lee Mansion). It is directly across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., north of the Pentagon. With nearly 300,000 people buried there, Arlington National Cemetery is the second-largest national cemetery in the United States. Arlington House was named after the Custis family's homestead on Virginia's Eastern Shore. It is associated with the families of Washington, Custis, and Lee. Begun in 1802 and completed in 1817, it was built by George Washington Parke Custis. After his father died, young Custis was raised by his grandmother and her second husband, the first US President George Washington, at Mount Vernon. Custis, a far-sighted agricultural pioneer, painter, playwright, and orator, was interested in perpetuating the memory and principles of George Washington. His house became a "treasury" of Washington heirlooms. In 1804, Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh. Their only child to survive infancy was Mary Anna Randolph Custis, born in 1808. Young Robert E. Lee, whose mother was a cousin of Mrs. Custis, frequently visited Arlington. Two years after graduating from West Point, Lieutenant Lee married Mary Custis at Arlington on June 30, 1831. For 30 years, Arlington House was home to the Lees. They spent much of their married life traveling between U.S. Army duty stations and Arlington, where six of their seven children were born. They shared this home with Mary's parents, the Custis family.
The Custis-Lee Mansion and 200 acres (81 hectares) of ground immediately surrounding it were confiscated from the wife of General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War. The grounds were designated as a military cemetery on June 15, 1864, by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. In 1882, after many years in the lower courts, the matter of the ownership of Arlington National Cemetery was brought before the United States Supreme Court. The Court decided that the property rightfully belonged to the Lee family. The United States Congress then appropriated the sum of $150,000 for the purchase of the property from the Lee family. Veterans from all the nation's wars are buried in the cemetery, from the American Revolution through the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pre-Civil War dead were re-interred after 1900. The Tomb of the Unknowns, also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, stands atop a hill overlooking Washington, DC. Kennedy is buried in Arlington National Cemetery with his wife and some of their children. His grave is marked with an "Eternal Flame." His brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy is also buried nearby. Another President, William Howard Taft, who was also a Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, is the only other President buried at Arlington. Other frequently visited sites near the cemetery are the USMC War Memorial, commonly known as the "Iwo Jima Memorial" and the Netherlands Carillon.
Town of PotomacThe Town of Potomac was formerly located in Arlington County adjacent to the massive Potomac Yard of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad. A planned community, its proximity to Washington, D.C., made it a popular place for employees of the U.S. government to live. Potomac was developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The town was annexed by the independent city of Alexandria in 1930. Today, in Alexandria, the Town of Potomac Historic District designates this historic portion of the city, and includes 1,840 acres (7.45 km²) and 690 buildings. The Town of Potomac was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
The PentagonThe Pentagon in Arlington is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense. It was dedicated on January 15, 1943 and it is the world's largest office building. Although it is located in Arlington, the United States Postal Service requires that "Washington, D.C." be used as the place name in mail addressed to the ZIP codes assigned to the Pentagon. The building is pentagon-shaped in plan and houses about 23,000 military and civilian employees and about 3,000 non-defense support personnel. It has five floors and each floor has five ring corridors. Built during the early years of World War II, it is still thought of as one of the most efficient office buildings in the world. It has 17.5 miles (28 km) of corridors, yet it takes only seven minutes or so to walk between any two points in the building. It was built from 680,000 tons of sand and gravel dredged from the nearby Potomac River that were processed into 435,000 cubic yards (330,000 m³) of concrete and molded into the pentagon shape. Very little steel was used in its design due to the needs of the war effort. The open-air central plaza in the Pentagon is the world's largest "no-salute, no-cover" area (where U.S. servicemembers need not wear hats nor salute). The snack bar in the center is informally known as the Ground Zero Cafe, a nickname originating during the Cold War when the Pentagon was targeted by Soviet nuclear missiles. During World War II, the earliest portion of the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway was built in Arlington in conjunction with the parking and traffic plan for the Pentagon. This early freeway, opened in 1943, and completed to Woodbridge, Virginia in 1952, is now part of Interstate 395.
September 11, 2001 attacksSixty years to the day after construction workers broke ground for the Pentagon, the building was seriously damaged by a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. It was one of three major buildings hit by airliners hijacked by members of Al-Qaeda, a militant terrorist organization. American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. EDT, killing all of its 58 passengers and six crew. The airplane hit a Pentagon "wedge" that was recently renovated and still consisted mainly of new, unoccupied offices. The crash and subsequent fire destroyed the outermost ring of the wedge and penetrated two more rings, leading to their collapse and the deaths of 125 people in the Pentagon. The efforts of Arlington County Fire Department and EMS personnel, among those of other jurisdictions, helped limit the loss of life and property damage.
Pictures and graphics of the damage are available from the Department of Defense.
Research Tips
|
