The seat of county government remained at Fairfax, but the courthouse square no longer sufficed to contain the complex of buildings involved. By 1969 construction had been completed on a County Governmental Center, later named the Massey Building, to honor Carlton Massey, the first County Executive, who served from 1952 to 1971. A separate building was erected nearby for the County Police Department, and plans were made for other buildings in the future.[124]
Rear view of the Fairfax County courthouse complex. Photo by the Office of Public Affairs, about 1972.
View of the Fairfax County Courthouse, the Massey Building, and downtown Fairfax. Photo by Bernie Boston, 1976.
Overshadowing the old courthouse tract, the new center of government nevertheless preserves the evidence of the past by continuing use of the original (north) section of the courthouse building and its 1953 addition, all in an architectural style reminiscent of the colonial period in Virginia. The presence of the past combine with a sense of the present and the future to make the Fairfax County Courthouse both a symbol and a functioning seat of a county government which in the year 1976 had been in existence for more than two centuries.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER VI
[113] Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Industrial and Historical Sketch of Fairfax County, Virginia, (Fairfax: County Board of Supervisors, 1907), p. 5.