Springfield Station (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

The first Springfield Station was located on the south side of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad near this location. Built after 1851, when the railroad was completed to Henry Daingerfield's "Springfield Farm," the station was the site of a Civil War skirmish on 3 October 1861 and a Confederate raid on 3 August 1863. The station served as the first Springfield Post Office from 1866 to 1868. It was reinstated as Corbett Post Office in 1907. The name changed back to Springfield in 1910 and so remained. The Springfield Post Office was moved to another location in 1953.

Erected 1999 by Fairfax County History Commission.

More about this marker:
Marker is at the present Virginia Railroad Express' Backlick Road commuter train station.


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Regarding the Post Office:
In 1953 the Springfield Post Office was moved 1¼ miles south, near the intersection of Old Keene Mill Road and Shirley Highway—now Interstate 95. On February 2, 1953, a new post office location opened as the first tenant in the still unfinished “Springfield Shopping Center” (aka: The Lynch Shopping Center currently The Tower Shopping Center at the SW corner of Brandon Ave and Bland St.) Postmaster Roy T. Bowman and two of his employees ran the new office after having served in the old railroad depot location. Almost immediately he and members of the brand new Springfield Civic Association began working to promote the sales of stamps, post office boxes, and residential mail boxes in order to amass the revenue that was required by The United States Postal Service to advance its class status and move towards house to house delivery. The efforts were extremely swift and successful because the office reached 2nd class status as of July 1, 1953 and the house to house delivery began in the Crestwood section on December 1, 1953. Delivery to the other subdivisions came shortly thereafter.


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Here follows an excerpt from "Post WW2 History of Springfield, Virginia and The Crestwood Construction Corporation" written by Robyn Carter:

When last we took a look back at the early days of Springfield’s development, we examined those early subdivisions that came following Edward R. Carr doing the developing and Crestwood Construction getting things started with the housing. As hundreds of families began moving into the area, there were some real challenges for those early Springfield “pioneers”. For one thing, something as basic as mail service was, at best, extremely primitive. To modern Springfielders it might come as unthinkable but for the first year and a half to two years, house to house mail delivery was not a reality. Those early (1952 & early 1953) residents had to go to a very small railroad depot that used to exist on the north side of the tracks across from the current Backlick Rd station. Mail sacks were dropped off or picked up by trains that ran past the depot and residents had to stop there to get or send their mailings. At that time there was no overpass carrying Backlick Rd over the tracks nor were there the usual gates that we are accustomed to seeing where at-grade crossings exist today. Once they drove over the tracks, residents had to turn onto the gravel and dirt shoulder of the track bed and park as best they could, hoping there were only a few others doing the same thing.