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From Byways
To Freeways
Driving down Leesburg Pike today, it is hard to imagine able-bodied men rolling rough-hewn “hogshead” barrels packed tight with crushed tobacco down the “road” to the river.
But apparently, that’s exactly what the road was used for.
According to Fairfax County Park Authority historian Mary Anna Warden, Northern Virginians still are driving on road systems which were originally designed 200 years ago to get tobacco and other farm products from the western part of the state down to the port towns of Occoquan and Alexandria.
Many of the county roads began as as Indian and animal trails. Later, as the land was settled, they remained “uniformly lousy.” Tree stumps were not removed. Undergrowth threatened anarchy. Roads in this region were so bad in the 1780s, most had to be marked with an axe blaze.
Mud Thwarts Thieves
Brazen thieves ransacked the Herndon Community Center and almost got away with the safe. But the mud stopped them.
“It was a good thing the ground was so wet,” said Mayor Richard Thoesen. Apparently the thieves tried to wheel the safe out of the community center, but it got bogged down in the mud. The thieves had to abandon it. The safe held more than $3,000.
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