Here the matter rests very uneasily today. The exact line was surveyed, monumented, and mapped by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey over the years 1946-1947.[68] ] However, the working agreements reached by the law enforcement officials of the various jurisdictions concerned have not always proven satisfactory. The long history of the location of the Potomac River boundary of Arlington County cannot yet be said to have reached its end.
Postscript—Towns in Arlington County
Of the three towns which have lain within Arlington County, the only one whose limits have been of importance to the territorial extent of the County is Alexandria. Nonetheless, to complete the record, some mention should be made of the Town of Potomac and the Town of Falls Church, the first of which lay wholly within Arlington, and the second, partly so.
Falls Church is the older town. It was chartered by the General Assembly on March 30, 1875.[69] ] The charter set forth the boundaries as:
"Beginning at the corner of Alexandria and Fairfax Counties on J. C. DePutron's farm; thence to the corner of W. H. Ellison and Koon [sic] on D. H. Barrett's line; thence to the corner of Sewell and Hollidge, on the new cut road; thence to the corner of J. E. Birch and H. J. England, on the Falls Church and Fairfax Courthouse road; thence to a stone in the road being a corner of B. F. Shreve, Newton, and others; thence to the crossing of the Alexandria and Georgetown roads at Taylor's corners; thence along the line of said Georgetown road to the corner of Samuel Shreve and John Febrey; thence to a pin oak tree near Dr. L. E. Gott's spring; thence to the northeast corner of John Brown's barn; thence to the crossing of Isaac Crossmun's and Bowen's line on the Chain Bridge Road; thence to the place of beginning."
MAP V
The Towns of Falls Church and Potomac in Arlington County
Drafted by W. B. Allison and B. Sims
After Arlington adopted the County Manager form of government, the residents of so much of the Town of Falls Church as lay within Arlington County (Map V) sought to have the charter amended to reduce the limits of the Town to that portion which lay in Fairfax. An action was brought on July 7, 1932, and the Circuit Court granted the petition on January 17, 1935.[70] ] This decision was appealed, however, and it was not until the next year (April 30, 1936) that the order went into effect,[71] ] after the lower court had been upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.