News

Arlington County historians are collecting artifacts to document the history of the Latino community in the county.

So far, some notable contributions include personal effects from former Arlington School Board member Emma Violand-Sanchez, who has been active in the Latino community for many years, Arlington Center for Local History Manager Judith Knudsen tells ARLnow.


Around Town

Thousands of historic Arlington newspaper issues from 1935 to 1978 are now available online.

Arlington Public Library’s Center for Local History worked with the Library of Virginia to transfer more than 40 years of published material to the Virginia Chronicle, where they are searchable by keyword, date, location and publication.


Around Town

A time capsule in Ballston that has been largely forgotten to time is set to be opened at some point next year, and no one seems to know what’s inside.

An inconspicuous plaque on the side of the Fairgate office building (1005 N. Glebe Road) announces the time capsule.


Feature

Today, Chain Bridge is a sleepy three-lane crossing between Virginia and D.C., but the bridge and its predecessors have played a prominent — if curious — role in the nation’s history.

“Most modern-day Arlington commuters who use Chain Bridge in their daily trek to and from the District would be astonished to learn how prominent the area at Pimmit Run at the Virginia end of the bridge was in the early days of our fledgling country,” Jim Fearson wrote in his “Chain Bridge: A History of the Bridge and Its Surrounding Territory from 1608-1991.”


Around Town

Arlington Public Library unveiled a trove of photographs and documents this week that spotlights the women in Arlington who’ve shaped the county’s history.

The digital exhibition is called Women’s Work: Stories of Persistence and Influence and it contains photographs, letters, bumper stickers, and voting guides taken from the Center for Local History’s (CLH) Community Archives. The exhibition organizes the records under several categories from politics to education.


Around Town

(Updated 2:35 p.m.) The Arlington Public Library’s Center for Local History has unveiled a new digital profile collection of women who influenced Arlington’s development through their “quiet but not silent” persistence.

The collection seeks to bring up the names of those women who “were frequently hidden in the background” but “were nonetheless ground breakers and trailblazers” who fought for better education, libraries, conservation, and health care in a modernizing county.