Frost Middle School

Here follows a history of the school as published on the Fairfax County Public Schools website:

Robert Frost Middle School opened on September 1, 1964. Our school was built, beginning in 1963, by M. L. Whitlow, Inc., at a cost of $1.1 million. On October 16, 1962, while our school was still in the planning stage, the Fairfax County School Board named our building after celebrated poet Robert Lee Frost. Below you will find links to learn more about our school’s namesake, our former principals, local history, and much more.

Our Principals:
Henry E. York (1964-1984)
Gary W. Miller (1984-1991)
Leslie Kent (1991-2003)
Marti Jo Jackson (2003-2014)
Eric McCann (2014-2018)
Anthony Harris (2018-Present)

Our Namesake
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963)

Learn about our school's namesake in this video produced for Fairfax County Public Schools’ cable television channel Red Apple 21:

Frost Middle School opened in 1964. The school is named for Robert Lee Frost, a beloved American poet.
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California in 1874 to William Prescott Frost, Jr. and Isabelle Moody.
When Robert was 11 years old, his father passed away and the Frost family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts where his mother became a teacher. Frost graduated high school in 1892 and briefly attended Dartmouth College before returning home where he tried several occupations, none of which satisfied him as did writing poetry. In 1894, at the age of 20, Frost sold his first poem "My Butterfly," an elegy. The following year Frost married Eleanor Miriam White with whom he had attended high school.
Between 1896 and 1907, six children were born to Robert and Elinor. In 1900, Robert moved his growing family to a small farm in Derry, New Hampshire which had been purchased for him by his grandfather. While living on this farm Frost taught English at the Pinkerton Academy. In the fall of 1912, Frost moved his family to England, settling west of London in the town of Beaconsfield. While in England, Frost published his first two volumes of poetry, "A Boy's Will" and "North of Boston." After England entered the First World War in August 1914, Frost moved his family back to America. In 1916, he began an on-again-off-again teaching career at Amherst College in Massachusetts and published his famed poem, "The Road Not Taken."

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

During the years 1921 to 1963, Frost taught English at various colleges in Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts. During this time, he was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes and a Congressional Gold Medal for his poetry. In 1961, at age 86, he was named poet laureate of the state of Vermont. Robert Lee Frost passed away in January 1963 and was laid to rest in Bennington, Vermont. There are many schools throughout the United States named in his honor.

Frost and Fairfax History (Part 1)
A Journey Back: Pre-history to 1860

The land that would become the site of Frost Middle School has a long and fascinating history. Join us as we take a look back and trace the owners of the land that would eventually become Frost Middle School and Woodson High School.

"...the possession of land quickly came to dominate the economic, social, and political life of the colony. Thus, the early history of northern Virginia, when the area now encompassed by Fairfax County progressed from frontier to plantations and small farms, is deeply rooted in the land." - Robert Moxham, Fairfax historian

Powhatan, Lord Fairfax and Colonial Life
Before the United States became a country, this entire area was part of the British colony of Virginia, founded in 1607 by John Smith. Smith explored and mapped our area in 1608, writing detailed accounts in journals and drawing maps. Trees covered the land and Native American trails crisscrossed the area between native villages and gathering places.

Powhatan was a powerful man among his people, the supreme chief of almost 30 Algonquin tribes whose territory ranged from the James River north to throughout the Chesapeake Bay area. John Smith estimated that the native tribes had established over 150 towns and a network of trails. The Native Americans did not have the concept of "owned land" or land for exclusive use of one person or a small group of people. They believed the land belonged to everyone. Therefore the European idea of owning or claiming land meant nothing to them, although it meant everything to the Europeans. The European settlers brought trade and for a time, the two groups co-existed on the land, sharing ideas such as farming techniques and map-making. But Europeans also brought unfamiliar diseases and more settlers were arriving every year. Over time, the European settlers forced the Native Americans west.

In 1649, Alexandria and Fairfax County were part of the largest land grant in America, called the Fairfax Grant. The Virginia lands, claimed by the British crown and outlined by the grant, were legally given under English law by the King of England Charles II to his loyal supporter, Thomas Culpeper. The Fairfax Grant was originally 5.2 million acres.

A generation later, the now-called Northern Neck Grant all belonged to another man, Thomas, 6th Lord of Fairfax, Baron Cameron. His father had married Thomas Culpeper's daughter and only heir in 1690. Upon his father's death, their teenage son, Thomas, now inherited all the lands between the Chesapeake Bay to the banks of the Rappahannock and the Potomac Rivers.

A Scottish peer and mentor to George Washington, Lord Fairfax gave Washington his first job as a surveyor when Washington was 17 years old. Lord Fairfax is the only British nobleman to have moved to the colonies and lived permanently on his colonial land. Although he was respected by the colonialists as a friend of Washington, during the Revolutionary War, all of his lands were confiscated. He died in 1781, less than two months after the British defeat at Yorktown.

Truro Parish, George Washington and George Mason
The official religion of the Virginia Colony was the Church of England, so local government In the Virginia colony was administrated for the most part through the Anglican parish. A parish each had a minister and twelve vestrymen, men of education and good standing in the parish. So in the years before Fairfax broke off from Prince William County to become its own county, the vestry of Truro Parish handled local matters.

Duties of the vestry included the overseeing of building and road construction, determining land ownership and land and property borders, caring for the poor, and arbitrating business and personal disputes. The currency used to pay for all work and services for the parish was, not money, but tobacco.

George Washington and George Mason were elected multiple times to be vestrymen of Truro Parish. As the two most respected men in the county and large land-owners, their opinions persuaded others. George Mason's writings were the basis of most of Virginia's founding documents, and as a result the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights as well. Although for health reasons he rarely left his home at Gunston Hall and declined to be a member of the Constitutional Convention, he is the man most singly responsible for its ideas. George Washington, even while President of the United States, was often seen riding his horse alone through Fairfax County, travelling from D.C. to his home at Mount Vernon.

The Falls Church and the Pohick Church, both still standing today, were two of the main churches for Truro Parish. When Fairfax County was established, county government took over the governing of the new county from the parish. The parish system was dissolved by 1786.

Fairfax County was founded in 1742 and in that time included what is now Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun. The city of Alexandria, already a popular trading area, was established in 1749 and, with its tobacco warehouses all along the Potomac, became one of the busiest ports in the colonies.

The Fitzhughs and Ravensworth
When President George Washington chose the site across the Potomac from Alexandria to become the nation's capital in 1790, the new city of Washington D.C. fueled commerce in the area. Settlements spread inland and westward. The land was mostly made up of large tracts owned by the wealthy, which were farmed as tobacco plantations and worked by white tenant farmers and by black slaves. Transportation of tobacco required the use of waterways, so roads in this time were little more than wide paths leading only to frequent destinations like warehouses, taverns or estate houses.

In these early days of the country, citizens of Fairfax complained about area road conditions, much as we do now! In 1804, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend Nicholas Fitzhugh. Frustrated at the conditions of the main roads on his route from D.C. to his home at Monticello which, due to high use or weather were often impassable, Jefferson asked his friend to draw him a map of back roads to use as an alternate route through what is now the Falls Church/Annandale area. Many of the paths and lanes noted on Fitzhugh's map reflect current roads today.

Jefferson's friend Nicholas Fitzhugh was the great-grandson of William Fitzhugh, an immigrant and successful lawyer. In 1685, William Fitzhugh bought a 21,996-acre, the largest colonial landgrant in Fairfax County, from Lord Fairfax's father-in-law, then-Governor Thomas Culpeper. Buying the land was a gamble because there was not much there at the time, but land in Fairfax quickly rose in value, and it paid off for the Fitzhugh family.

William Fitzhugh's land was eventually called Ravensworth Plantation. Three grand estate houses were built on the Ravensworth land, Ravensworth Mansion (now the site of Ravensworth Shopping Center), Ossian Hall (now the Annandale High School neighborhood), and Oak Hill. Oak Hill, home of Nicholas Fitzhugh and visited by George Washington, Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson and other notables, still stands and is a private residence in the Canterbury Woods neighborhood adjacent to Wakefield Chapel Road. The house is open to the public once a year in the fall on Oak Hill Day. Over generations, this great fortune in land called Ravensworth would be divided between William Fitzhugh's descendants, broken up and sold, and eventually Frost Middle School would be built on a piece of it.

In 1783, Jefferson's friend, Nicholas Fitzhugh inherited "Parcel 1.1.6" upon his father's death. His siblings also inherited other pieces of the Ravensworth land. A 1792 survey show that tenant farmers were renting and farming what is now the Frost/Woodson land.

In 1813, Nicholas Fitzhugh divided his parcel and sold 98 acres of it (Parcel 1.1.6.4) to Gerard Huntt for $783.

Little River Turnpike
By the 1800's, as land owners began to realize that tobacco wore out the soil, they started farming other products. These new goods needed to be transported over land. Land-owners, farmers and local governments alike recognized that good roads would be necessary for the region's economic success. Roads were few though. The most prominent roads were the Potomac Path (later Route 1), the Middle Road (later Leesburg Pike/Route 7), and the Alexandria-Centreville Road (later Braddock Road).

A new wider road was needed to go from the port of Alexandria through the fertile farm lands of Fairfax County to carry goods west. Plans were made for the road to take the straightest path from Alexandria through the Ravensworth lands, connecting the towns of Annandale and Providence to points west. From Providence, the road followed the path of today's Route 50 to the Aldie Mill on the banks of the Little River in the village of Aldie, home of James Monroe.

In 1800, the town of Providence, later named Fairfax City in 1874, had become the site of the fourth Fairfax County Courthouse due to its central location in the county. In fact, in most documents of the time, the town is referred to as "Fairfax Court House" and rarely is the term "Providence" used.

The problem was how to pay for the new road. In 1801, a private company was formed to sell stock to pay for the construction of the road. Later, after the road was finished, the plan was to charge users of the road a toll. The money would be used for the upkeep of the road. Little River Turnpike became the third toll road in America and the first privately owned toll road. This system is a lot like the Hot Lanes we use on our local highways today!

By 1811, the entire 34 miles of the road was complete. Toll houses were placed along the road to collect tolls. The nearest toll to Frost was in Annandale where the road intersects with Ravensworth Road. Once a traveller had paid the toll, the fence blocking the road would be "turned" by wheel to allow them through, hence the name "turnpike".

Tolls were collected for almost 100 years on Little River Turnpike until 1896 when Fairfax County took over maintenance of the road. In 1932, the Virginia General Assembly passed state maintenance of secondary roads, giving responsibility of road upkeep to what is now VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation). As roads took on more and more traffic through the years, the state would use the rule of "eminent domain" to seize land on either side of roads from their owners so the road could be improved and widened.

Through the years, Little River Turnpike would continue to connect central Fairfax County from east to west, contributing to commerce and the economic prosperity of the region by allowing farmers and merchants to move their goods from farms to mills to Washington D.C and Alexandria.

The Huntt Family
By the 1830's, plantations were mostly gone. Tobacco had stripped the land and exhausted the soil which could no longer support the rich lifestyles of the large wealthy land owner families. Descendants were inheriting smaller and smaller divisions of land that they began selling or renting smaller plots of their land to farmers, many of whom were former renters or "tenants", who diversified their crops and used more advanced farming methods. "Tenant farmers" cleared the land of tobacco and began producing crops such as corn, wheat, potatoes and raising cattle, sheep and hogs. The land became useful again.

Plantations had relied mostly on slave labor and slavery was a part of everyday life. Slaves were imported from ships docked at the ports of Baltimore and Alexandria and then sold through deals or bidding auctions on the streets of Alexandria. Large groups of 50-100 chained slaves would regularly be seen walking many hours a day across Fairfax County, being taken west and south by slave traders. Now the plantation owners didn't have the land or the money to keep as many slaves as before. Now slaves were sold in greater numbers, splitting up families, and taking huge populations of people for resale farther south where plantations still existed. Slavery could only become a greater moral and political issue, one that would eventually completely divide the country.

Beginning in 1813, the man who owned the parcel of land that would become Frost was Gerrard Huntt. Originally from what is now Martinsburg, West Virginia, he was a merchant and a farm owner. The 1830 census shows that he owned ten household slaves at that time. He freed his slaves in his will and asked that they be given proceeds from the sale of his goods to pursue life in a "free state". He had two grandsons and a granddaughter, all prominent members of Fairfax society during the Civil War years, who inherited his "tract of land wherein I now live" when he died in 1837.

The Gooding and Seaton Families
Gerard Huntt's grandchildren, Orlando Huntt, George W. Huntt, and Susan Huntt Bradt, and her husband, Alexandria grocer and ship-chandler Albert Bradt, finally sold the 98 acre parcel "south of the Little River Pike" to Peter Gooding for $1,500 in 1852.

The Gooding/Seaton family were well-known by now in the county and had purchased a lot of land along Little River Turnpike. Peter Gooding's purchase of the Huntt property was one of many acquisitions of land that over the years the Goodings had added to their family holdings, in all about 9% of the original Ravensworth Plantation. The central 3-mile swath of land extended from Accotink Creek (where it now flows under the Beltway exit at the Rt. 236 exit) down Little River Turnpike to the west boundary of the Frost/Woodson property.

Peter Gooding's father, William Gooding Jr. had a license from the Fairfax County Courthouse to run an ordinary on Little River Turnpike. An "ordinary" was a tavern and place of lodging. An ordinary could also serve as a meeting house for community gatherings. Gooding's Tavern, as it is now known, was also called the "10 Mile House" due to its distance from D.C. The Gooding-Seaton family cemetery is also adjacent to the tavern property and is still there about a mile from Frost.

Tavern owner William Gooding Jr., well-known and widely respected in his community, died a few months before the start of the Civil War. Like many Fairfax families, the war divided the Gooding family, some family members fought for the North and others for the South. The war also took a toll on their properties and businesses. William Gooding's daughters, Jane and Maria, inherited the tavern and the family house next door. Jane's husband, James Coyle, who also ran the tavern, died at the tavern in August 1863, killed perhaps by mistake by Union troops. Jane Coyle also reported after the war that the Union army had taken goods and supplies on a number of occasions. The tavern survived the war only to burn down in 1887.

Frost and Fairfax History (Part 2)
A Journey Back: 1860 to the Present

The land that would become the site of Frost Middle School has a long and fascinating history. Join us as we take a look back and trace the owners of the land that would eventually become Frost Middle School and Woodson High School during the period of 1860 to the present.

Fairfax during the Civil War
By the 1850's, although slavery was a huge moral and political issue, slave ownership was declining in Fairfax County. Artisans, business people and professionals had moved into Fairfax County. Plots of land were smaller and farming was more diversified. Regional ties were strong however, so, when northern Virginia faced a vote for succession, many were in favor. Many were not, but faced strong intimidation from their neighbors. By 1861, 6% of voters (all white men) were slave owners. Much of the "wealth" of these men was tied to the value of their slaves as property. 26% of the population of Fairfax were enslaved.

On April 17, 1861, Fairfax County held a vote on secession. Should Virginia "secede" from the Union, stop being a part of the United States, and join the Confederacy with other southern states instead? 75% of Fairfax County land owners (all white men) voted "yes" to join the Confederate States. Virginia seceded. Those that chose to fight for the Union would move to D.C., Maryland or western Virginia (later West Virginia) and join up with the Union army there.

After Virginia seceded from the Union and war eventually came, most young men from this area joined Robert E. Lee's army, the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee's family lived at Arlington House, just across the Virginia line from D.C. His wife, Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, was a Fitzhugh, a Washington and a Lee. Her father was George Washington's adopted son and her mother was William Fitzhugh's daughter. When Union troops endangered Arlington House, she had to flee to Ravensworth Mansion. She didn't know at the time, but, luckily for her, Ravensworth, as a property of the Washington family, had been designated as neutral ground, protected by orders from both sides.

The closest major Civil War battle to the Frost area was the Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, however our area did see a number of smaller skirmishes. Mosby's Rangers, commanded by John S. Mosby, frequented the Annandale and Fairfax areas, harassing Union troops up and down Little River Turnpike, running raids in the middle of the night, stealing horses and ammunition, burning bridges, attacking without warning and then disappearing into the night.

A local story goes that Noah Huntt, who lived in Vienna, had a 17 year old son Lewis who ran away one night to join Mosby's Rangers. Noah took off after Lewis to try and stop his son. He thought Lewis was too young to join the fighting and worried for his safety. Noah didn't catch his son in time though. Luckily, Lewis B. Huntt survived the war. He worked on the railroad as a young man, married and became a landowner and farmer as well.

Many tried to catch and kill Mosby. The closest anyone came to getting him was a night at Gooding's Tavern in August of 1863. Some drovers and their horses had stopped for the night at the tavern. In trying to take them, Mosby was shot and badly wounded. He got away, probably with help from locals. Later after the war, he surprisingly voted for General Grant for president, became friends with him, and even worked in the federal government for Grant's administration after Grant became the 18th U.S. President in 1869.

"ILDA"
After the war, Fairfax County seemed ready to move on. President Grant encouraged a quick re-establishment of the southern states to the Union by forbidding ex-Confederates from holding local offices and installing Unionists who were to make sure the states complied with the criteria for readmission to the United States. Northern Virginia was eager to comply.

Slavery had been abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation. And now due to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, slavery was now illegal in the United States.

A large population of Quakers from the north, strongly pro-Union, moved into Fairfax and many freed blacks as well, who appreciated the economic opportunities and the protections of the federal troops closer to D.C. and Alexandria. The Freedman's Bureau was established and worked for the education and job training of freed blacks.

Near the present Frost/Woodson area, where Prosperity and Guinea Road meet Little River Turnpike, a thriving black community evolved called Matilda or "Ilda" for short. Named after Matilda Gibson Parker, "Ilda" referred to a thriving community of almost 400 acres of land with a church, shops and homes. Matilda's father, Horace Gibson, and his business partner Moses Parker had been slaves in Culpepper, but had earned the money to buy their freedom and come to Fairfax to start a blacksmith business. They first purchased 10 acres of land right next to the road on Little River Turnpike at the Guinea intersection, a prime location, and from there ran a thriving business that served the entire Fairfax County community, black and white. Eventually after her father's death, Matilda took over the blacksmith shop and ran it until 1910.

Post-war, life in Fairfax County improved and residents prospered. Washington D.C. was growing as an urban center. Fairfax and its farmers produced the city's food, milk and other goods. Trades changed mostly to dairying, stock and poultry farming, flour milling and fruit, vegetable and flower growing to serve the growing market in Washington D.C. Fairfax County eventually led all other Virginia counties in dairy farming and dairy production.

Members of the Seaton family inter-married with the Gooding family and the future Frost/Woodson plot was passed down to no less than eight Seatons after Peter Gooding's death. A number of farmers purchased the various parcels of land from members of the Seaton family. Over the years, the parcels changed hands through sale, inheritance after a death or foreclosure. The following individuals owned parts of the land from 1880 to 1913: John D. Newman and Anne E. Newman, John S. Bremmerman, James R. Steele and Ida L. Steele, R.E. Thornton, and Thomas M. Trew and Amelie Ann de Dietrich Trew.

Industrialization and Immigration
In the early 20th century, industrialization came to Fairfax County. The number of railroad lines increased and trains and electric trolleys ran more frequently between Fairfax and D.C. Rail service offered quick delivery for dairy farmers in Fairfax to get their milk to stores in D.C. With rich grazing land for cows, dairy production boomed in Fairfax County.

The immigration boom at the turn of the century brought Europeans to America in large numbers. Many had been successful farmers in their home countries. Fairfax County and its rich farmland attracted them, bringing a diverse population to Fairfax County.

The Pfalzgrafs
Students, staff, and visitors to Frost and Woodson schools often ask about the old white farmhouse that still stands on the corner of Main Street and Pickett Road next to Woodson HS. This remarkable, and still beautiful, house was built by an even more remarkable family, The Pfalzgrafs. It's care has been entrusted to FCPS and school employees maintain the house to this day.

Adele de Dietrich Pfalzgraf, born December 4, 1880, was the fourth of five daughters of parents Baron Charles de Dietrich and Baroness Anne von Turcke of the wealthy de Dietrich industrial family of France. The de Dietrich's had made their fortune in the 1600's with iron mining. Later the company manufactured household appliances and eventually would even make Bugatti luxury cars.

Jacques Pfalzgraf was born on August 19, 1877 in Niederbronn-les-Bains, Germany, the son of a country gardener. Adele de Dietrich was Jacques' second wife. He had been married previously to Magdalena Rubin, but, as coachman in the employment of the De Dietrich family, he met their daughter Adele , and they fell in love. Making a scandalous decision that ostracized her from her uncle (her guardian since her parents had died) and the rest of her family, Adele, the heiress, and Jacques, an already-married man, decided to leave their European families and move to America in 1907. The couple married in Washington, D.C on December 28, 1908.

In 1908, using funds from the sale of her De Dietrich company shares, Adele and Jacques purchased the Seaton lots 1, 2 & 3 from widow Ida Steele and built the white farmhouse that still sits on Main Street. Today, the house is used for the FCPS GED offices. Jacques by all reports became a successful dairy and corn farmer. The Pfalzgrafs were well-known and had high standing in the community. Their pigs and cows even won top prizes at the county fairs!

In an interesting turn of events, Adele Pfalzgraf's sister Amelie de Dietrich, would also join her sister in Fairfax County in 1909 and purchase the farm right next door (Seaton lots 4 & 5). Since both of her parents had passed away and being a woman and a painter, Amelie saw little future in her family's company. After a brief stay in Austria, she decided to try farming and moved to be with her sister in Fairfax. Thomas M. Trew, the brother of a friend she had met in Austria, joined her, and they married in 1910.

When Amelie and Thomas Trew decided to emigrate their family to Canada, the Trew's sold their farm to the Pfalzgraf's, combining all five lots and creating the exact 100 acre parcel of land that Frost and Woodson sit on today.

Amelie and Adele's youngest sister was the well-known French theologian Suzanne de Dietrich. A frequent speaker on the lecture circuit and avid traveler, Suzanne visited Amelie in Canada often and became close with her children. She visited Fairfax to see the Pfalzgrafs on a number of occasions as well.

Sadly, Adele Pfalzgraf, reportedly given to bouts of depression and worried over gambling debts, took her own life on April 2, 1933. Six years later, Jacques passed away on April 15, 1939 of stomach cancer. They are buried in the Fairfax City Cemetery.

The Pfalzgrafs had five children: Jacqueline Adele Pfalzgraf Wagener was a clerk for Chevy Chase Dairies. Rene Dietrich Pfalzgraf was a farm manager and then a farming equipment salesman for Marietta Silos, eventually moving to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Adele Suzanne Pfalzgraf Copeland taught English for FCPS. In 1936, she was a founding faculty member at Fairfax High School during its very first year. She eventually moved to Ohio. Marcel Chasseur Pfalzgraf, who attended Virginia Tech (called Virginia Polytechnic Institute or V.P.I. in those days), also taught Agriculture at Fairfax High and coached varsity boxing. He eventually moved to Fredericksburg. Didier Charles Pfalzgraf served in the U.S. Army and was a D.C. firefighter for over 25 years.

The Feltmans
Four years after his father's death in 1939, the Pfalzgraf's son, Marcel Pfalzgraf, and his wife Jane, sold his parents' farm to Ralph Lee and Ruth S. Feltman.

Ralph Feltman started out as an auto mechanic and garage foreman from Aldie and ultimately became a successful entrepreneur. After purchasing the Pfalzgraf farm, the Feltmans made a number of improvements to the farm, building a large, new barn, a garage, storage buildings, adding electricity and phone service and bringing the main house and the entire facility into the modern era. He also continued his auto service business out of the garage on the farm.

The Feltmans had purchased their dairy farm at just the right time. By 1958, ten years after their purchase, the war years, the building of the Pentagon and the expansion of the federal government led to a huge population boom in Fairfax County. Families in need of homes were pouring into the county. Land developers could not build homes fast enough. An entire neighborhood could fit on the land from one farm so, in the face of lucrative offers for their large tracts of land from developers, many Fairfax farmers made the hard choice to sell. Neighborhoods of single family homes would completely transform the landscape of the county.

In addition to homes, schools also could not be built fast enough. With the family population increasing rapidly, the "baby boom" was on and children needed schools quickly. Fairfax County Public Schools was in the hunt for land to build schools, but the school board was finding it hard to compete with soaring land values. However, developers, eager to use quality schools as a selling point, encouraged the design of neighborhoods around elementary schools. High schools, however, needed much bigger plots of land. Then Superintendent W.T. Woodson, recognizing that the area east of Fairfax City would soon need an additional high school, took notice of the Feltman farm and encouraged the school board to pursue the purchase of it. The school board debated the purchase of such a huge piece of land and the cost effectiveness of such a purchase, but the location on Little River Turnpike, the farm's placement between Fairfax City and Annandale and the lack of other viable choices available at the time all convinced the school board that the purchase should be made. The plan for the land was to be for the new "Central High School".

In the summer of 1959, Ralph Lee Feltman sold the the 104 acre dairy farm to the Fairfax County School Board for $270,000, over a quarter of a million dollars and quite a bit of money in 1959. He would then move his family to the Belle Haven neighborhood in Alexandria and continued to have many business interests including a taxi cab company and a Volkswagon dealership.

The school board now owned the "Feltman Tract", one of the biggest parcels of land that FCPS would ever buy, and quickly began plans for a new "Central" High School that would offer more programs to students than any school before. When Superintendent Woodson announced his retirement in 1961 after 32 years, the planned high school was given his name. W.T. Woodson High School opened in 1962. Frost Middle School opened two years later in 1964.