Old Court House

On October 10, 1896, a deed was recorded providing land for the first Alexandria County courthouse separate from Alexandria City. (Alexandria County will be renamed Arlington County in 1920.) The deed stipulated that a Courthouse should be built there within five years and that “no blacksmith shop or other shop, manufactory of any kind, livery stable, pigpen or bone boiling or similar establishment shall be erected or permitted on said lots, that no nuisance or offensive, noisy, or illegal trade, calling or transaction shall be done, suffered, or permitted thereon.”
Virginia’s General Assembly adopted legislation that authorized county voters to have a courthouse that was no longer in Alexandria City. Alexandria City had separated itself from the county in 1870.
Three locations were considered for the new courthouse: one was Addison Heights in the South Arlington Ridge Road area, another was in a area with one half mile radius of Hunter’s Chapel on Glebe Road and Columbia Pike. The last site was with in a radius of a half mile of Fort Myer Heights near Wilson Boulevard between Rosslyn and Clarendon. Voters selected the third site.
Two years later, in 1898, the courthouse was dedicated. It had additions made to it in 1929, 1936, and 1948. In the deed, every effort was made to keep the rural property free from bad smells, loud noises, or disturbing businesses.
(Image: the new courthouse in 1898)