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Evelyn Inn (Site)

GPS Coordinates: 38.7789034, -77.0803996
Closest Address: 6332 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, VA 22306

Evelyn Inn (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the motel once stood. Today, no visible remains exist.


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Here follows an excerpt from Chris Barbuschak's presentation, "The History of Motels on Route 1 in Fairfax County" on behalf of the Mount Vernon Regional Historical Society:

When the MVRHS first asked me to talk about motels, I thought there's probably 20 tops on Route 1. Boy was I wrong, there are 62! So, a little context about hotels and motels on Richmond Highway. Route 1 is over 2,400 miles long. It's known as America's first main street and it stretches from Maine to Florida and its chock full of mom and pop shacks and businesses, diners, fortune tellers, truck stops and motels. U.S. Route 1 between Washington and Fredericksburg more or less followed the Potomac Path, which was a Native American route along the Potomac River. And when the Europeans came and settled it, they chose the shortest route along the bank of the Potomac as well.

In 1918, the state designated State Route One, which is part of the old Jefferson Davis Highway, and it was called SR1 in 1923. It became State Route 30 in 1926. In less than a year by 1927, the entire stretch of roadway was paved and motels practically popped up overnight. From the 1920s and 1930s, there were tourist ports which were individual cabins that you could stay in. They were arranged in a horseshoe fashion, usually around an office or a picnic area or a restaurant. Then in the 1940s and 1950s, you get into the low slung ranch style motels. And then in the 1960s and 1970s we get a couple of chain motels that come in.

So, Route 1 was the main north and south artery for many years, almost 50 years until Interstate Highway 95 opened up. That connected to Fredericksburg in 1964 and almost overnight all the businesses in the Richmond Highway corridor went downhill and continued to do so. Route 1 kind of had this "no tell" motel vibe to it. Ever since the 1960s, the county tried to get those motels to close and one by one they did. As of today, only nine of those original motels still exist. A couple of them are already on the chopping block.

So buckle up, and lets look at them all:

EVELYN INN -- 6332 RICHMOND HIGHWAY
Right next to the Penn-Daw Motor Hotel was the Evelyn Inn. James Gordon Bennett built the Evelyn Inn during the late 1920s. They named it after his wife. What do you think her name was? Evelyn. She died in 1929 from the flu. So Bennett, needing somebody to operate this motel, married Evelyn's divorced sister, Maggie Peck, who is often portrayed in the motel advertising. She offered the rooms and meals for tourists, and sold the inn shortly after her husband's death in 1941. There's a few different postcard views of it. Rockwell Ola bought it in 1945.

How many of you have been to Leesburg in the last 30 years or so? Do you remember the Mighty Midget Kitchen? Alexandria had their own version of the Mighty Midget Kitchen. It was this prefabricated food booth that was built in Los Angeles in the 1940s out of scrap metal and for whatever reason they were really popular in Northern Virginia. There was at least 20 of these in the city of Alexandria and in the outskirts. Her son opened this up in 1947, calling it Little Kitchen and serving hot dogs and hamburgers out of it. This whole complex was demolished in the 1960s to make way for a small office building. Today, that was also torn down to make way for the fairly newer Krispy Kreme donuts shop.

ABOUT ME

Award-winning local historian and tour guide in Franconia and the greater Alexandria area of Virginia.

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ADDRESS

Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

franconiahistory@gmail.com

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