The article is a bit self-indulgent today. I’ve been fascinated for quite a while with the National Scenic Byway that has been designated the "Journey Through Hallowed Ground.". Much of my life has centered on places along this 180-mile line, and I’ve driven portions of it literally hundreds of times. I’ve also visited many but not all of the sites that are considered integral to the Hallowed Ground, as might be expected both by my physical proximity and my dual interests in history and geography.
So what do I do when I don’t find the maps on the official website satisfactory for my purposes? I create my own. They’ve developed nice enough maps but the interactive ones cover only a single county each. I wanted everything on a single map. Fortunately the website provides a convenient list of waypoints to make this a fairly simple exercise (even if a few of them weren’t entirely correct).
View Journey Through Hallowed Ground in a larger map
Perhaps a few people on the Intertubes will also find it useful. I’ve set the map option to "public" hoping others may benefit even if I developed it primarily for personal enjoyment.
The hallowed ground covers a remarkably compact territory considering its significance during the first century of United States history. Founding fathers and early presidents including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe called this home. Hugely important Civil War battles including Gettysburg, Antietam, and First and Second Manassas, plus dozens of smaller engagements ravaged the landscape. It’s hard to move even a few miles around here without running into something of profound historical significance.
View Larger Map
There are some lesser-known places I’ve wanted to visit. The Graffiti House tops that list. Both Union and Confederate armies stopped here frequently as they marched along the ancient Carolina Road between various campaigns. It also served as a Confederate field hospital during the nearby Battle of Brandy Station (the largest cavalry engagement in U.S. history). Soldiers from both armies left extensive doodles and writings on the wall, which were covered-up with wallpaper after the war and forgotten about until the 1990′s. The home only recently passed into the hands of a foundation that will protect it. They’ve also made it available for limited public viewing.
There seems to be quite a divergence in the historical significance of sites included on the list. Obviously, few are going to argue that Gettysburg and Monticello aren’t historic. Some of the places, however, appear to have been added to fill out the map or drive tourism to some of the more obscure corners. The Point of Rocks bridge? Really?
View Larger Map
I guess I’ll always think of this bridge as an easy way across the border into nearby Maryland when I was newly of drinking age, and wanted cheap booze. That liquor store even had a drive-through window! It was quite a striking contrast to the state-run Virginia liquor stores that had all the ambiance of the old Soviet Union.
Some grounds, even among the hallowed grounds, are more hallowed than others.
The Background
An independent city in the United States is a rare form of government. In broad general terms, the county is the tertiary or local level of government.(1) An independent city belongs to no county and derives its authority directly from the State. This is true even if it happens to be surrounded entirely by a neighboring county, a doughnut hole in an otherwise contiguous territory.
Most independent cities exist within the Commonwealth of Virginia, the only locality that uses this form of government commonly in the United States. This dates back to a quirk in the state constitution passed in 1871. Here, all localities that chose to incorporate as cities automatically gain independence from their surrounding counties. Indeed, 39 of the 42 independent U. S. cities are located in Virginia.(2)
This leaves people who count things in a quandary. The U.S. Census Bureau considers independent cities to be "county equivalents" for purposes of the decennial census and other statistical measures. That’s a pretty authoritative source and good enough for me. However, hobbyists seem to fall on both sides of the fence. Amateur radio enthusiasts, for example, consider a contact made within an independent city good enough to also claim the bordering county for its "Worked All Virginia" award. On the other hand, many county counters would consider county-equivalents to be completely separate and visit-worthy.
The Setup
I am a relentless and thoroughly-addicted County Counter, having just recently passed the 1,000 mark. Something had been bothering me though. I was pretty sure I’d been to the independent city of Manassas Park, Virginia, but I wasn’t positive. I’ve been driving around this area for decades so surely I must have clipped it or traversed it at one point or another.
As I poured through the maps and traced the possible routes I would have taken over the years, I couldn’t find a logical basis to conclude that I’d actually completed a visit. I’m not sure why I was bothered. It’s not like there’s a great County Counting Council somewhere that’s going to erase a little square on my Life List and publicly humiliate me. This is all self-certifying. Nobody cares. Well, except for me and that’s personal. I felt compelled to spend an hour-and-a-half this morning going specifically, overtly to the city of Manassas Park to make sure it counted. Good lord I’m obsessive-compulsive, albeit in a fairly harmless way.
There’s something one needs to understand about traffic in Washington, DC‘s Virginia suburbs: it’s absolutely abysmal. People grow old waiting at traffic lights while every lane and direction gets its own arrow. It is suburban sprawl personified and a convincing case that local governments cannot pave their way out of a problem. I would have to travel deep into the teeth of some of the worst drives in the United States if I failed to consider the optimal timing. Travel here is not measured in distance, rather in pain avoided.
I had to calculate this just right. Daytime, any day, could turn into an hours-long slog of volume, construction, accident and signal delays. Nighttime would be better but then the photos wouldn’t be any good. I decided that the best time would be dawn on a weekend. I’d have to hit that brief window of light before the soccer moms in their green minivans began their weekly grocery runs. I would thread the needle with military precision.
The Journey
I left home at 6:30 am as the first licks of hesitant light streaked across the sky. My plan worked brilliantly as I shot past the Beltway and cut down a secondary arterial with little traffic and green lights all the way. I approached the Prince William County border on a direct path towards Manassas Park.
Northern Virginia is part of Virginia territorially but it often feels out of alignment with its fellow brethren. Depending on which side of the ephemeral "border" one inhabits, that portion of Virginia outside of NOVa might be called either Real Virginia or ROVa (rest of Virginia). Someday I’ll write more about that but not today. I’ll simply note that I’ve lived on both sides of that fence and the answer is more nuanced than the way the absolutists on either side portray it. There isn’t even a clear definition of NOVa’s territory. One claim – among several – is that the break coincides with the Fairfax County / Prince William County line.
Perhaps I’m pandering a bit to a stereotype, hopefully not, but this sign greeted me as I crossed into Prince William County. I laughed at the possibility of buying guns, complaining about taxes and bringing home a bushel of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs all in one stop. In actuality this sign represented three separate businesses in the tiny strip mall shopping center, nonetheless, consider the possibilities! Alright, enough of that foolishness. I was on a mission and had to get back on task. The clock continued to tick and I started to notice a few more cars.
Mapquest shows county lines, including the adjoining independent cities of Manassas and Manassas Park delineated with dotted lines.
Cities of Manassas and Manassas Park
I was heading for the northern one, Manassas Park. I soon arrived without delays or troubles. If only it was always so easy.
I took the County Counting to an even further extreme, a bizarre offshoot known as County Highpointing, treating this independent city as a county-equivalent. That’s right, when crossing into the physical territory of the county simply isn’t enough, take it to its absolutely most absurd and irrational extent, and don’t count it until reaching the county highpoint. I figured I wasn’t going to ever go through this effort again so I’d make it count in the grandest way possible. Plus, I knew that the highpoint wasn’t going to be difficult to reach because an independent city is a lot smaller than almost any county. The city planners, being rational people, understood this too. Guess where they stuck the water tower? Yup, right near the highpoint. Elevation. Water. Gravity. Yes, a solid plan.
Well, the independent city of Manassas is just down the road another mile from Manassas Park, so why not capture that highpoint too? Bagged it. The actual highpoint is probably another block west near the intersection of Prescott Ave. and Quarry Rd. (there’s some debate on this) so I did a drive-by there too.
By now, just around 7:15 am, traffic was starting to back up at the lights. Thankfully I was approaching the exit for the Interstate highway.
Fairfax City
As I considered the possibilities, I realized that the independent city of Fairfax City was right along my homeward route too. I could grab another highpoint with a minor detour.
And here it is.
The remainder of the trip went smoothly and I finished a little before 8:00 am. Perfect. Now I’ll leave the car in the driveway for the remainder of the weekend. Maybe I’ll walk up to the Apple Store and see if they have Snow Leopard in stock. I’ve had enough of the driving for awhile.
The Epilogue
City of Falls Church
The City of Falls Church highpoint would also have been an easy catch, but I didn’t stop there.
After all, I captured this one previously. Where’s the water tower, you ask? I’m pretty sure they get their water from neighboring Arlington County, so no tower here.
(1) Also known as a Parish in Louisiana or a Borough in Alaska. There are variations in the levels of authority various States reserve for counties (little to practically nonexistent in New England for example), but let’s set those complexities aside for another time so we can focus on the independent cities instead.
(2) The other three are Baltimore, MD; St. Louis, MO; and Carson City, NV. These shouldn’t be confused with consolidated city-counties like San Francisco, CA or city-parishes like New Orleans, LA or city-boroughs like Anchorage, AK, where the city and county governments have been merged.
