Little Run Elementary School

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

Little Run Elementary School opened in 1963 during the period known as the baby boom. In 1960, there were 53,700 children enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). By 1970 that number would climb to 133,360. Because the population growth in Fairfax County was primarily driven by the growing size of the federal government, the United States Congress allocated financial aid to FCPS to assist with school construction. The construction of Little Run Elementary School was partially funded by a federal aid grant. Our school was designed by the architecture firm of Pickett & Siess and was modeled after the plans used for Herndon Elementary School.

Honoring Catherine Howard
In May 1980, the Washington Post reported that Little Run Elementary School combined its annual Arbor Day and May Day observations into one special commemoration in honor of a long-time teacher, Catherine Howard. Howard taught at Little Run from 1963 to 1976. She was personally responsible for planting the azaleas, dogwoods, and maple trees that grace our school campus. At the celebration, third grade students played spring songs on plastic recorders for the teachers and parents who attended the gathering. Other children performed a traditional maypole dance.

What's in a Name?
Learn about the origin of our school's name in this video produced for Fairfax County Public Schools’ cable television channel Red Apple 21:

Little Run Elementary School, named for the nearby Little Run Estates residential neighborhood, opened in September 1963. The school was built on land that was formerly part of Ravensworth, a large plantation once owned by the Fitzhugh family. By the late 1700s, the northern half of Ravensworth had been divided among the five youngest sons of Henry Fitzhugh. One of Henry’s sons, Richard Fitzhugh, inherited some 2,500 acres that encompassed the Long Branch watershed. Long Branch is the creek which begins on the edge of Fairfax City near Woodson High School and flows southeast into Accotink Creek. On its course through Fairfax County, Long Branch passes through what is now parkland south of Little Run Elementary School’s playing field. Around 1951, a farm road now called Olley Lane, was extended south from Little River Turnpike to Braddock Road. In 1952, Oliver Besley and Grant Dodson broke ground for a residential neighborhood along the new section of this road where it crossed Long Branch. They named their new neighborhood Little Run Estates. The reason for the developers’ choice of the name, Little Run, cannot be verified, but it has been theorized that the name was inspired by Little River Turnpike in combination with Long Branch, or possibly by Long Branch alone. Little River Turnpike was constructed over a nine-year period by enslaved laborers, beginning in 1802. Chartered by the Virginia General Assembly, the Little River Turnpike Company completed a toll road, or turnpike, from Alexandria to the Little River near the present-day village of Aldie in Loudoun County, Virginia. The section of the turnpike in Fairfax County became a public road in 1896, when the Virginia General Assembly transferred ownership of this part of the turnpike to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. The second potential source of inspiration for the name Little Run – the creek named Long Branch – received its name when our region was first surveyed by English settlers during the early 1600s. The early colonists of Virginia commonly used the words “branch” and “run” when naming small creeks, so, in essence, Long Branch is a… little run.