Relic on the Lethe

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 Fairfa...