Ward's Corner (Site)
GPS Coordinates: 38.7842691, -77.1292262
Closest Address: 5500 Franconia Road, Alexandria, VA 22310

These coordinates mark the exact site where the store once stood. No visible remains exist.
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Here follows an article excerpted from the Franconia Legacies newsletter as published by the Franconia Museum and written by Betty Jean Plaugher Nalls:
Ward’s Corner in Franconia
Ward’s Corner opened in 1937, at Franconia Road and Old Rolling Road, now the site of a Crown gas station.
My father and mother, Ward and Sylvia Plaugher, opened a small country store, and by country—there was no other way to describe it. Franconia was country country. Franconia Road was a two-lane road with a crown in the middle. No stop signs, traffic or traffic lights. The business started to grow. More and more products were added as was more and more space. Gas pumps were added (Texaco) and the price was five gallons for a dollar. Breyers ice cream was sold and a Jimmy Johnson would come and decorate the front windows in crepe paper to showcase this. Dixie cups had lids and pictures of movie stars under the top that you always had to lick to see whose picture you got.
I’m not sure, but the next thing to be added was an automotive repair garage. Gradually, other additions included a soda fountain—banana splits were 35 cents and that was with three scoops of Breyers ice cream, toppings, walnuts in syrup, real whipped cream and a cherry on top. Other additions included a bar room and dance hall with live country music. People who remember this can relate their own memories. For a short time, slot machines were legal and he had some of those.
A theater opened on February 8, 1948, replacing the garage. It was named “Sylvia” after my mother. The first movie shown was “California” starring Ray Milland and Barbara Stanwyck. Admission was 40 cents for adults and 20 cents for children. This was before air conditioning; therefore, lots of fans were used. Live shows came to the “Sylvia.” Connie B. Gaye was there several times as were Roy Clarke, Jimmy Dean, The Stoneman Family, Grandpa Jones and others that I cannot remember. When the theater closed, the space became an auction house. A lot of nice things were auctioned there-- antique furniture and glassware that would certainly be collectibles now.
During World War II, an addition was added to the back. A slaughter house was opened plus a tire re-capping business. Meat was rationed and new tires were not available. I was glad when the slaughter house closed. As more space was added, other businesses came: Curtis Martin’s Real Estate office, Redwing Moving and Storage and a barber shop. The soda fountain became Dansby’s Restaurant.
My father passed away on November 4, 1958. The following May 18th, the store was destroyed by fire. My mother is now 94 years old and lives in Springfield.
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Here follows an article excerpted from the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter as published by the Franconia Museum in 2004 and written by Woody Wise:
Woody "Sonny" Wise Remembers Ward's Corner:
My earliest memories of Ward's Corner would be when I was about eight years old, which would put the year at 1946. My parents would stop there for gas or to pick up bread, milk etc. at the grocery section. And then the times I was with my father and he would want to stop at the beer tavern at the rear of the building and I would wait in the car. I can remember sitting in the car and hearing Hank Williams and other great country music greats wailing away from the jukebox. Ward's Corner was actually one of the early shopping centers with a grocery store, gas station, beer tavern, dance hall and soda fountain, with the Sylvia Movie Theatre to follow in 1948. When I was about 12 years old I became a paperboy and delivered the Times Herald. My route was from Cannon's Lane to Wards Corner. I had about 30 customers. Today thousands of paper customers must be in this short span.
My first job after delivering newspapers was at the soda fountain at Ward's Corner. I was 14 years old. I worked after school and on Saturdays. I was paid $1.00 per hour. This was a particularly fun period of my life.
Ward’s Corner was a great hang-out for the local kids who played the jukebox and had fun just talking and kidding around. Most of us didn't have televisions yet so this was the thing to do. I got my first real teenage crush on a girl at the soda fountain. Her name was Joanne Brannon. She would come in all the time and pay no attention to me. Then I would have to listen to Hank Williams sing “Cold Cold Heart” on the jukebox.
The Sylvia Theatre was open at the time I was working at the soda fountain. The theatre was next door to the soda fountain. At this time in my life, I was fascinated with movies, which started when I was about eight years old. My father bowled in downtown Alexandria on Wednesday nights and he would drop me off at the old Richmond or Ingomar Theatres on King Street. I would watch a movie while he bowled. In those days, movie theatres made great baby sitters. I decided I wanted to be a projectionist at the movies. When I was 12, I received a toy 16mm projector with silent Abbott and Costello movies for Christmas. So by the time I was working next to the Sylvia Theatre at Ward's Corner, I had my eye set on getting in the projection booth.
Before 1950, all projection booths were considered dangerous, as film was flammable. I made friends with the projectionist at the Sylvia and started hanging out with him while he ran the movies. He started showing me how to run the films and he would let me take over while he went down to the tavern and had a beer.
When he did, I am sure Ward Plaugher was not around. When the projectionist did not show up one day, I talked Mr. Plaugher into letting me run the show. I became the projectionist at the Sylvia Theatre at the age of 14. The theatre was only open on the weekends. So I still worked at the soda fountain after school and the theatre on the weekends.
A few months later I talked Mr. Plaugher into letting me have the theatre on Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s and Thursday's to run movies on my own. In return I would work free on the weekends for the use of the theatre.
Somehow at the age of 14, I talked the local M-G-M film exchange in Washington, D.C. into letting me rent three films for my first shows. They were "Singing in the Rain,” "Showboat," and "Ride Vaquero.” My experiment only lasted for three weeks. I just broke even and decided it was not in my best interest to continue, but I proved to myself at an early age that I could conduct business.
At age 15 I decided to go to downtown Alexandria and apply to be a projectionist at the big theatres. It didn't take long to find out that in the big city you had to belong to a union to be a projectionist and that didn't happen to a 15 year old kid. So I decided to become an usher. I was hired as an usher at the Reed Theatre on King Street in 1953. In a couple of years, I became an assistant manager. At the age of 18 I became the youngest theatre manager in Virginia when I was made manager of the flagship theatre of the Alexandria Amusement Corp., the Virginia Theatre.
In 1973 I moved to Los Angeles, California to become the curator of the Harold Lloyd Museum in Beverly Hills. When the museum closed, I opened a mail order video business which I recently sold and retired. I now live in Glendale, California with my wife Sandy. I volunteer two days a weeks at the Warner Brothers Museum which is located on the Warner lot where many of my favorite films like "Casablanca," "The Maltese Falcon,” "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and many more of my favorite films were made.
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Here follows an excerpt from the Fall 2005 edition of the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter as published by the Franconia Museum in 2004 and written by Betty Jean Plaugher Nalls:
Famous Franconian: Sylvia Louise Shepherd Plaugher
On February 9, 1909, a daughter, Sylvia Louise was born to Annie Elizabeth and Raymond Shepherd. Their home was located in Accotink, Virginia. Five siblings would follow. Unfortunately, Raymond died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Sylvia quit school to care for her sisters and brother. Annie went to work at the shirt factory in Alexandria. At the age of 16, Sylvia met Ward Plaugher who was a streetcar conductor in Washington, D. C. where Kate Smith was a regular passenger. They soon married and after living in southwest Washington, D. C. they relocated to Franconia in 1935. Ward opened a small country store on Franconia Road, later to grow into Ward’s Corner. Sylvia worked many long hours, as did Ward. Ward died November 6, 1958. Sylvia continued to operate the business until it burned May 18, 1959. Sylvia still lives in Springfield, Virginia and is 96 years of age. A sister, Mildred Posey, age 95, lives on Franconia Road. They are the oldest family survivors, the younger siblings having preceded them in death.
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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2008 edition of the "Franconia Remembers" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:
My Memories Of Franconia
written by Sharon Taber Breeding
This is an excerpt from the Taber Family Story from the Franconia Museum’s upcoming book “Franconia Remembers, Volume IV”
My friends and I would go along Franconia Road and look in the ditches for pop bottles, which were worth two cents. We would find as many as we could and take them to Ward’s Corner, or to Fitzgerald’s Store to trade for candy. Mr. Fitzgerald would make us clean the bottles before he would take them from us. But at Ward’s Corner, we could cash them in, dirt and all. Densel Webster, who worked in the store, didn’t care how dirty those pop bottles were.
I also remember Otis Davis who cleaned up around the store. He walked with a limp. The day Ward’s Corner burned down was an awful time for everyone. We kids ran from Franconia Elementary School all the way to Wards the day it burned.
My oldest sister, Sheila Taber, worked at the Sylvia movie theater, at Wards, selling tickets at the ticket booth. Another one of my sisters, Linda Taber, was run over by a car near Ward’s Corner. My older brothers, Richard, Jimmy, and Harry, would go with Ward Plaugher up to Winchester to the apple orchards and pick apples.
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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2011 edition of the "Franconia Remembers" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:
Betty Nalls
Written by Carl Sell
Soda Jerk*, movie cashier, short-order cook, competitive horsewoman, loving wife and mother, accomplished organist and accordionist, friend, neighbor, and history buff with a deep knowledge about Franconia and its long-time families.
All of the above describe Betty Plaugher Nalls, who recently joined the Board of Directors of the Franconia Museum. Long an advocate of preserving the area’s history, Betty and her husband Buddy know so much about Franconia they can preserve for future generations. There isn’t much community activity either or both haven’t been involved in over the last half century or more.
A very young Betty came to Franconia with her parents, Ward and Sylvia Plaugher, in 1935. Two years later, her dad and mom would establish a small store that was the forerunner of Ward’s Corner, a Franconia landmark for more than 20 years. In time, the business would include a restaurant, theatre, gas station and, pardon the expression, barroom in the back.
Betty, Gloria (the oldest of the three sisters) and Gwen (the youngest) all worked in the family business (except the barroom), went to school at Franconia Elementary and later Mount Vernon High School.
As a teen-ager, Betty would make ice cream sodas, milkshakes, banana splits and cook hamburgers in the restaurant. She also doubled as the cashier for the movie theatre, where patrons usually didn’t know what was playing until they came to the window. Betty’s dad would send John Posey and Jack Coffey to Washington, D.C., to pick up movies and they never knew what they had gotten until they opened the reel. The movies cost 40 cents for adults and 20 cents for kids. The theatre was named after Betty’s mother.
Ward’s Corner was famous for its live country music, featuring rising stars being showcased by Connie B. Gay, a local radio personality. They included Jimmy Dean, Roy Clarke, Grandpa Jones and the Stoneman family, a Franconia group that included 22 members if you ask Buddy and 16 if you ask Betty. Anyway, the group played a variety of instruments, some homemade, sang and danced. One of the girls, Ronni, later was featured in the popular television show, Hee Haw.
The Plaughers owned all the land between what is now Old Rolling Road and Brookland Road, including the current skating rink and town house community. There was a barn and pasture behind the business where Betty learned to guide her horse over the jumps. She would become an excellent rider, winning ribbons in the many horse shows that took place in the area, including those sponsored by the Franconia and Penn-Daw fire departments.
Betty’s dad wasn’t known for keeping the cleanest car in Franconia. One day, he sent her to the local Kaiser-Frazer dealership (located in the building where Franconia Hardware and subsequently Paradiso Restaurant is located) to have it cleaned. There she met a young gas station attendant named Buddy Nalls, who refused to clean the car but did snag a date with the pretty young driver. They went on a double date with Percy Benton and Lois Simms (Percy had the car) to the Ice Capades at the old Uline Arena in Washington, D.C (where the Beatles subsequently made their American debut) and Buddy recalls that Betty wanted one of every souvenir on sale.
Buddy and Betty were married on March 21, 1952 at Pohick Church. Buddy was in the army and subsequently served in Korea. When he came home, he began doing remodeling work and that led to home building. In fact, he built the house he and Betty have lived in on Steinway Street since 1955. When it was finished, Buddy went to work on another house one morning. When he came home that night to the house across the street where he thought he lived, he found out that Betty had moved them into the new house, slick as a whistle in one day.
Betty and Buddy would have three sons, Arthur born in 1954, Cary in 1956 and David in 1957. Arthur went on to graduate from the United States Naval Academy and became a renowned Marine test pilot. He currently is in the real estate business in Washington, D.C. Cary, who with help from his grandfather Carroll Nalls, started the business from his little red wagon, owns and operates Nalls Produce on Beulah Street, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011. Brother David has his own successful produce business, located on Route #7 just over the Blue Ridge Mountains near Berryville, VA. Cary also is a member of the Franconia Museum’s Board of Directors.
Betty learned to play the organ and worked at Demaine’s Funeral home and various area country clubs. She had her own organ and Buddy and the boys would lug it back and forth to the clubs for performances. The accordion was a lot lighter. The organ remains in the Nalls’ household, but Betty got rid of the accordion some time back.
Betty, along with members Sonny Wright and Margaret Welch bring a long and deep understanding of Franconia to the Board of Directors, helping make up for the loss of founder Jac Walker who died in 2009. There are 15 directors, all trying to preserve their unique history of Franconia and those who have gone before.
*For those who never visited an old-fashioned soda fountain, the name came from the fact that the clerk would “jerk” the handle on the fountain that produced the soda, which was mixed with a gas to make it fizz.
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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2015 edition of the "Franconia Remembers" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:
Bob Gagnon owned Red Wing Moving and Storage that was located at Ward’s Corner until Franconia’s early business and entertainment center burned down in July of 1959.