PA R K F O U N D AT I O N
The Oakton Schoolhouse on the Move
Oakton Schoolhouse in transit
Interpretive education was rolling this winter with an eye-popping preservation of a historic piece of Fairfax County.
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n a delicate procedure on January 7, the moving van pulled up to the Oakton Schoolhouse — and pulled away with the whole building. Movers used a unified jacking system to brace and lift the approximately 35-ton schoolhouse from its foundation and, without tilting the structure, hauled it three-tenths of a mile to the Oakton Community Park in under two hours. Chevy Chase Bank provided funding for the move, which is the first of several improvements at the park on Hunter Mill Road. The Friends of Oakton Schoolhouse and the Fairfax County Park Foundation helped save the building for use as an interpretive tool as a late 19th Century one-room schoolhouse. The Oakton Schoolhouse was home to the Appalachian Outfitters store beginning in 1972. Some people may remember it as the Lynn Moyer & Co. Hardware Store from 1944 to 1972 or, going back a little further, as Payne’s Store from 1934 to 1944. For 20 years prior to that, the building was a private residence.
The Oakton Schoolhouse served as an elementary school from approximately 1897 to 1914, a time of relative prosperity for the local farming community. Families gathered at the schoolhouse to see neighbors performing in plays and to enjoy ice cream socials and oyster suppers. The schoolhouse was consistently crowded. Initially it was a oneroom building, later was partitioned into two classrooms, and then a room was added. In January 1905, 85 students attended. In 1911, the school established a one-year high school class in a room above the nearby Sutton’s store. The Fairfax County Park Foundation has designated a fund on behalf of the Friends of Oakton Schoolhouse for maintaining and operating the building. If you would like to donate to the fund, please make checks payable to “Fairfax County Park Foundation” (memo line “Oakton Schoolhouse”) and mail to 12055 Government Center Parkway, Suite 404, Fairfax, VA 22035.
www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/oaktonschoolhouse.htm
Spring 2007
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