Long before Homer Simpson made the TV town of Springfield famous, before the Springfield Mixing Bowl was created or Slug lines came to town their was a small ‘country” highway stop fifteen miles outside of DC that would come to be known as Springfield Virginia.
In 1946 the developer Edwin Carr realized that their was a huge piece of undeveloped land ,close enough to DC to be appealing to government workers who worked in town and that would provide space for larger homes than were currently available in Arlington or Alexandria. My parents were one of those families who decided that Springfield provided a chance for them to buy their first home. In 1955 they bought a brand new split level home in the Yates Village neighborhood of Springfield.
When we moved in to our new home there wasn’t much around us. The only grocery store in the neighborhood was a small store called Bon Foods, there was a drug store with a soda fountain and Fischers Hardware had been open a couple of years. Across the street from our house was an old farm house with huge cherry trees to climb and plenty of space to roam. We could take off on a summer morning and not come back until evening without any worries. Milk was delivered to the house; we bought eggs from the “egg man” who lived in a small house off of Keene Mill Road and vegetables from a farm at the corner of Backlick and Braddock Roads.
Over the years Springfield grew and spread. The farm house came down to make way for a shopping center, the empty field first became a Babe Ruth baseball field and then gave way to an office building. New neighborhoods appeared in North and West Springfield. My parents thought about a bigger house in one of the new West Springfield neighborhoods but in the end they stayed in their original home for 45 years. When I bought my first house in Kings Park my mother said “who would want to live all they way out there?” Over the years my children and I have lived in Huntsman Estates, Springfield Oaks, Charlestown and I inherited the Yates Village house in 1999. My kids laugh about the fact that we have lived in every zip code in Springfield!
The days of soda fountains, farms and wide open spaces are long gone. Springfield now is a bustling area with a wide variety of neighborhoods, dining choices and commuting options. Driving through Springfield neighborhoods you will still find some of the unique areas that gave the community it’s start and find original owners still loving maintain their homes over 50 years later.
Original Springfield Home Brochure
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