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School Days in Annandale

From the Annandale Recorder, Volume 1, Number 2, 1 September 1955, comes a look back at a flurry of building activity in local schools.

Newcomers to Annandale will hardly remember the tenseness of the school situation a few years ago, when Quonset huts with their inadequate space and heating accommodations, half-day sessions, long and wearying bus rides, rented rooms in neighboring churches, and inadequate recreational equipment were the lot of the children of this community.


Quonset huts (pictured in the lower image from the Annandale Reporter) were an invention of the World War II era, when the U.S. Navy needed cheap, lightweight, and easily assembled structures. Instead of trailers, as we might expect to see during a school renovation today, these half-round, corrugated metal buildings were the closest option to pre-fab classrooms available at the time. After the war, the remaining buildings, declared military surplus, found another temporary life serving schoolchildren in Fairfax County as temporary learning centers.

The article goes on to state that, by the end of 1955, eight elementary schools would be in operation: "Annandale, Belvedere, Lincolnia, Masonville, Wakefield Forest, Weyanoke, Woodburn, James Lee, and Luther Jackson." Another new school "is planned for colored students, to be called the Lillian Carey School," and was expected to open in 1956. Although the image quality in the newspaper is not the best, the school pictured in the top insert may be either the Annandale Elementary School or the Masonville Elementary School.

🏫 Looking at the list of elementary schools in Fairfax County, the count as of January 2024 is 142. From this list, it appears Belvedere, Wakefield Forest, Weyanoke, and Woodburn are still in use as elementary schools. What happened to the other buildings? FCPS has done an amazing job highlighting the history of their closed schools:

  • Annandale: The building still exists and is in use as ACCA Child Development Center.
  • Lincolnia: The building still exists, but in 1983 the property was declared surplus. It has been repurposed into a senior center.
  • Masonville: The original school of this name was partially destroyed by fire, and the remainder of the building was demolished. The site is now in use as Mason Crest Elementary School.
  • James Lee: The building went through several phases of use, including time as overflow classrooms and administrative offices, before its current use as a community center.
  • Luther Jackson: This building still exists, and was included in the original list perhaps through confusion or its use as overflow classrooms. The building was a high school at the time of the article. Today, it is the Luther Jackson Middle School.
  • Lillian Carey: This school still exists. Today, the building goes by the name Bailey's Community Center.

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