South County Middle School

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

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.

South County Middle School opened in September 2012. The school was named for its geographic location in Fairfax County. In the early 20th century, the South County Middle School property was a cornfield that was farmed by inmates who had been sentenced to the Occoquan Workhouse – a minimum-security prison owned by the Federal Government. In 1953, the U.S. Army took possession of the future middle school tract for use as part of its Nike anti-aircraft missile defense system. Named after the goddess of victory from Greek mythology, the Nike surface-to-air missile system was designed to protect the United States from an attack during the Cold War. The Cold War was a period of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, both nations fearing the other might try to dominate the world with its political system. As a result, American political leaders feared the prospect of a sudden attack by the Soviet Union on American cities and defense installations. Consequently, they developed special weapons meant to blunt the possibility of large numbers of Soviet bombers suddenly attacking cities and factories around the country. There were more than 260 Nike missile sites across the United States, three of which were located in Fairfax County to defend the nation’s capital. The Nike emplacement at Lorton consisted of two separate installations, namely a launch area and a battery control facility. The missile launch area at Lorton was located near the present-day intersection of Lorton Road and Hooes Road. The weapons were stored underground, and were raised to the surface by elevators prior to launch. One mile away from the launch area, on the land now occupied by South County Middle School, stood the battery control facility. The facility included barracks for the soldiers, a mess hall, radar towers, and the control systems used to direct the missiles to their targets. The Nike missiles in this area received a lot of attention, here and around the country. They weren’t a secret.
They were open to the public, to school groups, to business tours, to visiting dignitaries who wanted to see an example of American defenses. In fact, this particular site, because of its proximity to the Pentagon and the State Department, hosted dignitaries from around the country and around the world, who came to see what America’s defenses were like. And in fact, American political leaders wanted both the American public and adversaries and allies to know the extent to which the United States was prepared to defend against an attack. The tours ceased in the late 1950s, when a new type of missile, the Nike-Hercules – outfitted with a nuclear warhead – replaced the conventional Nike-Ajax missiles at Lorton. During the 1960s, as the threat of an attack by Soviet aircraft waned, America’s defense strategy shifted away from the Nike missile system.
The Lorton Nike site was closed in 1974. The property was purchased by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2002, and, in 2010, the battery control facility was demolished in preparation for the construction of South County Middle School.