A Virginia Village

Reprinted by the Centennial Committee of the Falls Church Village Preservation and Improvement Society April 1985.

In 1985, its Centennial Year, the Falls Church Village Preservation and Improvement Society comprises over 750 citizens and businesses dedicated to improving the quality of life in Falls Church.
The Society recognizes that it is the inheritor of the civic purposes and activities of the Village Improvement Society (VIS) of Falls Church established in 1885 and which group was modeled after the famous Laurel Hill Association of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and that VPIS' purposes, objectives and activities represent a continuum of the earlier organized and volunteer civic organization and effort to improve and preserve the historic tradition, residential character, quality of life and appearance of Falls Church, Virginia.
The values articulated by the founders in 1885 have not changed to the present:
Archives of the Society may be found in the Virginia Room of the Mary Riley Styles Library, Falls Church, Virginia.
Charles A. Stewart's A Virginia Village is a charming depiction of the early days of Falls Church. It is the earliest attempt to put on paper the story of the Falls Church area. In addition to interesting stories about people and organizations and life generally in the small town of 80 years ago, the book contains photographs of 107 Falls Church houses, stores, and churches then standing. Reading it is a trip into nostalgia for old-timers—but the book is more than nostalgia. It pictures many elements which we associate with the community's lovely historic character and interest, and which intrigues newcomers and older residents alike.
Charles A. Stewart produced the book with the help of friends, including M. M. Ogden, who wrote the preface, and Pickering Dodge, who took the photographs. Joseph H. Newell printed it in a small backyard shop owned by his father, which was located on what is today North Washington Street next to the Columbia Baptist Church.