Prince William County

By Prince William County/Manassas Convention and Visitors Bureau

Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., has changed dramatically over the years. The area welcomes thousands of visitors annually to historic sites and is home to thousands more residents. This volume takes readers on a journey through the county that preserves its past with an eye to the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Mar 3, 2008
• ISBN: 9781439635469

Prince William County/Manassas Convention and Visitors Bureau

The Prince William County/Manassas Convention and Visitors Bureau has compiled vintage photographs and modern images chronicling one of the most visited areas in Virginia.

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INTRODUCTION

Prince William County is ideally located just south and west of Washington D.C., nestled between the Potomac River and the Bull Run Mountains. The destination has served as the hub of several major transportation corridors and a strategic location for centuries. This was first noted as early as 1608 when Capt. John Smith sailed and mapped more than 40 miles of Prince William County’s Potomac River shoreline. The first Englishman to walk on the shores here, he made acquaintances with the local Native American tribes and was able to gather food for the starving Jamestown colonists. The area still holds the remnants of the north-south carriage route known as King’s Highway, traversed by the early American Revolutionaries. This route, also known as the Potomac Path by early Native American tribes, is still preserved in remnants near Rippon Lodge, at the Prince William Forest Park, and on the grounds of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

As early as the 1840s, tourism in Prince William County was a healthy and growing industry. Sudley Springs, a popular health spa, was the rage of the era. Billed as a Mineral Spring of very valuable water, fast growing into notice, the region’s wealthy and powerful spent many a day bathing in the springs and drinking the waters for their health-giving benefits.

Gold and pyrite mines were even established, attracting speculators from afar. Cabin Branch Mine, Crawford Mine, and Greenwood Mine were created and explored, although none of them produced massive quantities of precious metals.

Transportation advances also marked the times. Steamboat travel was established on the Potomac River, and telegraph lines were installed as a means of communication for wealthy families during the 1840s and 1850s.

By October 1851, an extension of the Orange and Alexandria (O&A) Railroad line was constructed through the Tudor Hall region of Western Prince William County (now the Manassas area). It connected Northern Virginia with towns in the Shenandoah Valley and Washington, D.C. Advertising no detention from ice and the only safe and certain [rail] line, the establishment of the O&A line through the then-placid village of Tudor Hall increased the area’s population and would later change the fabric of Prince William County and Manassas in an unforgettable way.

Union loyalists thought a war against the southern states would last a single battle, and public opinion urged Union generals to advance onto southern territory and engage Confederate forces. They looked to Manassas Junction, a mere 35 miles from Washington, D.C., and a key railroad for transporting southern supplies. The capture of Manassas would also provide the north with a direct route to the Confederate capital in Richmond.

This first, pivotal brush with history occurred at a strategic junction of a number of intersecting railroad lines that would feed into Washington, D.C. Manassas Junction was twice attacked and defended during the Civil War. At least six other sites in Prince William County served as lesser battle and skirmish locations during those four years of