Twain Middle School

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

Mark Twain Middle School opened on September 6, 1960, and was one of the very first intermediate schools opened by Fairfax County Public Schools. In 1958, the Fairfax County School Board voted to reorganize the public school system and establish the county’s first intermediate schools. Traditionally, students in grades 1-7 attended elementary schools, and students in grades 8-12 attended high schools. Intermediate schools were created to ease the transition from elementary school to high school, and provide students with a specialized program of study geared to the specific needs of their age group. A pilot program began in the fall of 1958 and proved so successful that Fairfax County Public Schools administrators embarked on an ambitious plan to open eight more intermediate schools during the 1960-61 school year. Early in the intermediate school planning process, it was decided that each school would be named for a famous author or poet. Our school was officially named Mark Twain Intermediate School by the School Board in May 1959, and William E. Campbell was hired as our first principal. In the 1990s, all intermediate schools in Fairfax County were renamed as middle schools.

Our Namesake
Where did Samuel Langhorne Clemens get the inspiration for his pen name Mark Twain?

Mark Twain Middle School opened in 1960. The school is named for Mark Twain, the pseudonym a famous American author, Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835. At the age of twelve, he became a printer's apprentice and later worked as a typesetter. During his early 20s, Clemens became a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. When the Civil War broke out, he traveled west working as a miner in Virginia City, Nevada. It was here that he first developed his pen name Mark Twain, a term from his steamboat days referring to water death. Mark Twain's first hit came in 1865 when the humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published bringing him national attention. During the 1870s and 1880s, Twain wrote some of his most famous works, such as "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "The Prince and the Pauper," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Mark Twain has been called the greatest American humorist of his age and the father of American literature. Mark Twain died in 1910 in Connecticut. Many schools throughout the United States are named in remembrance of him.