Old Lorton School (Site)

To help clarify, this building is the second of the four Lorton schools, this one being used from 1922 to 1955. These coordinates mark the exact location of the building, but no visible remains exist.


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Here follows an excerpt from "The Dixie Pig" blog written by Senator Scott Surovell in 2013:

The date Lorton School opened is unknown, but for years, it was housed on the second floor of Springman’s store, adjacent to the Lorton railroad station. Today, that should be about where Lorton Road intersects Interstate 95. The county built a two-room schoolhouse in 1923, then a larger, brick structure in 1934. The school system transferred all Lorton students who lived east of Route One to the new Gunston School when it opened in 1955. The county converted Lorton into an administrative center in 1989. Nearby Lorton Station School opened just a few years ago.


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

In 1922, a two-room schoolhouse was built near the present-day intersection of Silverbrook Road and Lorton Road. Completed in late October or early November, the building was called the Lorton School.

In the summer of 1924, construction began on a two-room addition to the Lorton School. One of the contractors assigned to the project was William F. Halley, for whom Halley Elementary School is named. Approximately 800 bricks used to construct the addition had been donated by the superintendent of the District of Columbia Workhouse and Reformatory. The bricks had been made by inmates in kilns located near the Occoquan River.

Lorton Elementary School
In the late 1920s, the number of employees at the District of Columbia’s penal institution at Lorton was rapidly increasing. This led to a significant rise in the area’s school-age population. At that time, Fairfax County Public Schools’ consolidation movement was underway. School consolidation was the systematic process by which Fairfax County closed its rural public schools and relocated the students into larger buildings.

In September 1933, the Fairfax County School Board applied for a grant from the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works to fund school construction. The request included $35,000 to construct a new, six-classroom, consolidated school at Lorton. In April 1934, the School Board received a letter from the state engineer for the Public Works Administration (PWA) stating that the plans for the new school had been approved and construction could proceed. Two months later, on June 6, 1934, the School Board awarded the contract for the construction of the building to contractor J. H. Bennett, Inc.

Built adjacent to the Lorton School at a cost of $34,048, Lorton Elementary School opened its doors to students in January 1935. After the new school opened, one room in the old, four-room building remained in use as a classroom. The old Lorton School was also used as an auditorium for school functions and community meetings.

Pictured above is the Lorton School in 1954. After Lorton Elementary School opened, the old building was used as an auditorium and later as a dwelling by the school’s custodian. The building was demolished around 1955.

As the school-age population continued to rise in the post-war years, Lorton Elementary School’s custodian, Mr. H. H. Jenkins, was forced to move out of the old wood-framed Lorton School so the building could be converted back into classroom use. In April 1952, construction began on a four-room addition to Lorton Elementary School. The addition also included a library, secretary’s office, and storage rooms. Built by contractor Eugene Simpson & Brother at a cost of $74,694, the addition was completed in time for the opening of schools the following September.

"An influx of more than 2,000 post-war babies will put between 1,200 and 1,300 Fairfax County pupils on double-shifts, it was revealed today as more than 20,000 children reported for the opening of the 1952-53 school year. An estimated one-third of the enrollment will use temporary or sub-standard classrooms at the beginning of the session. These will include Quonset huts, churches, fire halls, basements, apartment buildings, partitioned auditoriums, libraries, and cafeterias." ~ The Alexandria Gazette, September 2, 1952

What’s in a Name?
Did you know that the name “Lorton” was given to this part of Fairfax County by Joseph Plaskett in the 1870s? Learn more about the history of the Lorton community in the following videos produced for the FCPS television channel, Red Apple 21.

Located on Lorton Road near Interstate 95, the Lorton Center is an office building used by employees in the school system's Department of Facilities and Transportation Services. The building was originally known as Lorton Elementary School. The name "Lorton" was given to this part of Fairfax County by Joseph Plaskett in the 1870s. An immigrant from England, Plaskett was instrumental in the establishment of the community's first post office in 1875. The Lorton Valley Post Office, as it was known, was named by Plaskett in honor of his former home, the village of High Lorton in England. In the late 1870s, the community's first public school, called the Lorton Valley School, was constructed on land donated by John Plaskett, son of Joseph Plaskett.
The schoolhouse was replaced in 1922 by the building pictured here which was known as the Lorton School.
Originally a two-room schoolhouse, the Lorton School was enlarged to four rooms in 1925. During the Great Depression, the federal government's Public Works Administration or PWA was created as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. The PWA supplied grant funding for public school construction and Fairfax County Public Schools obtained grants to build new schools at Burke, Centerville, Dunn Loring, Woodlawn and Lorton to name a few. Constructed next to the Lorton School, Lorton Elementary School was completed in August 1935. The building has seen many additions since that time, particularly during the post-World War II baby boom which greatly increased the school-age population in the Lorton community. In the spring of 1970, the school's combined cafeteria, auditorium, and several other rooms were destroyed when arsonists set fire to the building. Those facilities were reconstructed and the building remained in use as an elementary school until 1988 when it was replaced by Silverbrook Elementary School.

It is already agreed by most people in the area that the name "Lorton" was given to a geographic area in southeastern Fairfax County by Joseph Plaskett. When he became postmaster in 1875 he named the post office Lorton Valley for the place in Cumberland County, England from which his family had immigrated. Before the post office was established in Plaskett's crossroads store, mail was received through the Accotink post office. The store was located near the intersection of Gunston Road and present day Route 1.

Joseph Plaskett left England with his family in 1853, sailing out of Liverpool, and after six weeks at sea, arrived in the port of Philadelphia. The family settled in New Jersey for about a year, but learning of a farm for sale in Virginia, Plaskett sent his oldest son John to look it over. The property was called Belmont and contained a brick home said to have been built in 1717. It possibly had been occupied by relatives of George Washington, but when John Plaskett arrived, the farm was in sad condition after having been neglected for many years. The Plasketts left New Jersey for Virginia, and with the help of their large family, were able to turn Belmont into a productive farm where the family lived until after the Civil War. In 1859 John, the oldest son, married into the Cranford family and received from his new father-in-law a gift of 18 acres and a cow. On the property John built a home and in 1861 moved his wife, Mary Jane, and new daughter, Emma, into the dwelling.

In later years, descendants of the family claimed that on the day of the battle of Bull Run,
the guns could be heard booming all day. Members of both the Plaskett and Cranford families were suspected of being spies during the war and were arrested. John Cranford and Matthew Plaskett were prisoners of war in the Old Capitol Prison. After having refused to sign a parole in February 1862,
Mathew remained a prisoner until he was exchanged in October of 1862 and duly enlisted as a private in the Georgia Infantry. He died of wounds received in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863. Mary was detained overnight after it was claimed that a Confederate soldier who had fired on and killed a Union soldier had been hiding in her cart as she traveled home from Alexandria. It was later determined that the soldier had fired from roadside bushes.

Having survived the war, some of which they spent in Alexandria, the Plaskett family returned home. By 1870 a railroad had been constructed connecting to the RF&P tracks from Quantico to Washington replacing the boat that had been previously used. The new station called Telegraph Road was just a mile from the Lorton Valley post office, and John Plaskett's sons were dispatched to deliver outgoing mail and pick up incoming mail at the new station.

John and Mary Plaskett's oldest daughter Emma married Joseph Springmann who opened a general store near the new station and became the first station agent. Later he became postmaster of Springmann, the name given for a while to both the post office and station. Later both were changed to Lorton. When Joseph Plaskett died in 1893, the store and post office continued to be manned by members of the Plaskett family until the Lorton Valley post office was discontinued in 1911. The store operated until 1915 when it burned. Another was erected on the original site and was operated by John Plaskett until his retirement.

The Plaskett family of Lorton had a long association with Lewis Chapel and then Cranford Church. Many members of the family are buried in the cemetery there. John and Mary Plaskett produced ten children, eight of whom survived into adulthood. A history of this remarkable family is chronicled in a book titled Memories of a Plain Family; 1836-1936 by their youngest child, Susan Annie Plaskett, which was published in 1936 and republished in 2009. Today the many descendants of the Plaskett family can arguably claim that they are members of one of the first families of Lorton.