News

Historical re-enactors brought names from the past to life at the Mount Olivet United Methodist Church Cemetery last weekend.

The event, which involved re-enactors portraying some of the notables interred on the grounds, was hosted jointly by the church and the Arlington Historical Society. It was an opportunity to celebrate 170 years of “education, healing and spiritual growth,” said Mary Waters of the church’s history committee.


News

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The League of Women Voters of Arlington was established by a coalition of 17 founding members in January 1944, and for more than 80 years has been a force in the county’s civic life.


Around Town

A longtime family-owned auto shop in Clarendon will close next month to make way for a redevelopment project.

After 85 years at 3211 10th Street N., Joyce Motors is closing for good on Friday, Oct. 10. The historic auto shop will host a farewell gathering at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11, before shutting down to allow for a new mixed-use apartment building.


News

The planned sale of a historic property in the Penrose community may be a way for the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington to find a permanent home.

An online fundraising effort is seeking to help purchase the circa-1900 home at 2312 2nd Street S. In the early 20th century, this served as the Hunter Station trolley stop, where the Fort Myer branch of the D.C., Alexandria and Falls Church commuter-rail line connected to trolley service.


Schools

Arlington’s oldest elementary school is celebrating its 100th anniversary on Friday with student-centered activities and a community picnic.

Festivities at Barcroft Elementary School will include a human chain beginning at the site of the original Barcroft School and a mini “field day” where students participate in games and activities that kids might have played 100 years ago.


News

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To Northern Virginia Democrats, 1952 will be remembered as the year victory slipped narrowly away.


News

New “stumbling stones” are honoring the lives of two individuals enslaved in present-day Boulevard Manor in the 18th century.

The brass markers in the sidewalk at 516 N. Livingston Street honor the lives of Con and Killemacse, who in the mid-1700s were enslaved on farmland that now forms the Boulevard Manor neighborhood.


News

The Arlington Historical Society is calling on local writers to bring key aspects of the county’s history to life as the nation’s 250th birthday approaches next year.

The new writing project, “250 by 2026,” aims to round up 250 stories that may not be in the public consciousness.


News

A recent event by the Arlington Historical Society marked the 250th anniversary of the founding of local and statewide militias in the Revolutionary War era.

The program held at the Ball-Sellers House on Saturday honored the establishment of the Fairfax militia in January 1775, followed by the creation of a statewide militia in August of that year.


News

Arlington’s Green Valley community has a long and, in many ways, distinguished past.

Coming into being before the Civil War, it served as a home to freed Black residents and carried on as a refuge for the African-American community in a county and commonwealth that, until the 1960s, adhered to a rigid system of segregation in housing and other facets of daily life.


News

A new Arlington Historical Society exhibition looks at the life and legacy of what may have been Arlington’s first Chinese-inspired restaurant.

“The Family Tea House: Where Culture and Cuisine Met in Arlington” delves into the story of Family Tea House, the dishes it offered and the role it played in a brief but important episode in Virginia’s civil rights movement.


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