Tag: downtown

Preserving historic documents

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From left: Judy Hall, R. J. Hall, John Burcham and Diane Burcham, all of Leesburg, look at a restored book of records that had been laminated.

During downtown Leesburg’s First Friday event this month, scores of people got a glimpse of a war being quietly waged every day in the Loudoun County Circuit Court archives: the battle against the ravages of time, including mold, bookworms, rust and acid-laden cellophane tape.

About 160 people stepped through the doors of Leesburg’s 122-year-old courthouse — away from the sounds of al fresco diners and street musicians — to learn how the county’s historic records are being preserved and restored.

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Washington Post, June 12, 2016

Leesburg Halloween art contest

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For the next week, the store windows of downtown Leesburg will be filled with ghosts, witches, bats and an assortment of other scary creatures, courtesy of local teens engaged in a friendly competition.

Teams of art students from three Leesburg high schools — Heritage, Loudoun County and Tuscarora — are competing in a Halloween art contest sponsored by the Leesburg Downtown Business Association.

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Washington Post, October 25, 2015

Support for memorial to slaves

The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted last week to support a proposal to build a memorial on the county courthouse grounds in Leesburg to commemorate the slaves who were sold on the building’s steps and the soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War.

The board voted Wednesday to contribute $50,000 toward the memorial, which the local chapter of the NAACP has proposed as a way to present a more complete history of Loudoun’s involvement in the Civil War. The only commemoration of the war at the site is a statue of a Confederate soldier.

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Washington Post, September 6, 2015

City Tavern reopens

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Pete (left) and Nick Veltsistas

City Tavern, which closed June 29 after more than two decades in Old Town Manassas, has reopened in a location less than a mile away, outside the city’s historic downtown.

The restaurant reopened July 22 in a renovated building at 9550 Center St. that formerly housed KC’s Restaurant. A co-owner of City Tavern’s former building, adjacent to the Olde Towne Inn, said he expects another restaurant to open there after major repairs are completed.

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Washington Post, August 30, 2015

Little Free Library launched in Manassas

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Belinda Miller with the Little Free Library

A group of Prince William writers, joined by Manassas City Council member Ian T. Lovejoy (R), formally launched the city’s first Little Free Library in a ribbon-cutting ceremony Aug. 8.

Members of Write by the Rails, the Prince William County chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, constructed the tiny library. It will be mounted in front of the New School, which is slated to open this fall in the old post office building on Church Street in Old Town Manassas.

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Washington Post, August 16, 2015