SHHPC Hosts Casual Couch Conversation with Old Sterling Residents

The Sterling Historical & Heritage Preservation Committee (SHHPC) hosted an evening of casual conversation on December 13th, a chilly Wednesday night at the Sterling Library. An audience of approximately 20 residents gathered to learn what the Sterling, Old Sterling and Guilford Station area near the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) railroad were like before Sterling Park was established in the 1960’s. The couch style conversation featured three of Sterling’s older residents, Hugh Ball, Butch Smith and Jim Gallihugh, who grew up in Old Sterling near the W&OD back when it was still a farm community. They reminisced about Sterling before, during and after the suburban development of Eastern Loudoun County and discussed what folks did back then to live, work and entertain themselves. It was a very different time in Northern Virginia.

The conversation was moderated by Sterling resident and local journalist Mark Gunderman who asked a series of social and historical questions of the three gentlemen and engaged attendees from the audience to contribute as well.

Ball, Smith and Gallihugh presented their personal accounts of the past and held everyone mesmerized and likely longing for easier times and simpler living.

Ball attended the old Sterling Schoolhouse on Ruritan Circle (formally Old Church Road) built in 1880 (still stands today), then old Ashburn Elementary (12-classroom elementary built in 1945-only brick replacement for burned-down Ashburn High), then Leesburg High School (North Street) before graduating from Loudoun County High in 1956.

Smith began school at the red brick Sterling Elementary (built 1947), then attended old Ashburn Elementary before graduating from Loudoun County High in 1965.

Gallihugh began school at the old Sterling Elementary, switched to the modern elementary school on West Church Road, attended sixth and seventh grades at the Sterling Annex and graduated from Broad Run High in 1975. They all attended the recently demolished old Sterling Methodist Church (where both Smith and Gallihugh were married).

The three reminisced about playing baseball “all the time,” before there were county built baseball fields, eating at the Jack-in-the-Box (the first fast food establishment on Sterling Boulevard) and attending teen dances at the Ruritan Club on Railroad Avenue (now Ruritan Road), which served as the community center for the entire area.

The Sterling Ruritans, the first local civic organization established in 1951, held monthly meetings in the old Sterling Elementary School until they bought Bowman’s Tavern, a local beer hall. The first Ruritan meeting was held there in February 1959 and monthly meetings still take place at 183 Ruritan Road. Hugh, Butch and Jim all remember their parents attending the Ruritan Club for dances, baby showers, weddings, anniversaries and other community events.

As youths, Ball and Smith fished and swam in the Broad Run, participated in weekly turkey shoots in the fall (using shotguns aimed at paper targets about 25-35 yards away) and rode the train to Herndon to shop, Ashburn to visit family or out to Purcellville to have their cars repaired.

Hugh, born in 1938 and attended the first Sterling School from 1944-47. His mother Peggy Testerman taught at the school from 1936-1937. The school which once enrolled forty students had no running water or bathroom but two outhouses did exist in the backyard, one for boys and one for girls. According to Hugh, Bill and Jimmy Lawson would arrive early at Sterling’s first public schoolhouse to start the fires in the school’s wood potbellied stoves. In his teens Hugh and his friends would wash their cars in the creek called Difficult Run near Reston. He remembered Sterling Boulevard was built in 1962; before that it was just a dirt road.

Butch was born in 1947 and remembers that his first job was cleaning the Methodist Church every Saturday for $7 a day which was great money for a youngster. Butch said back in the 1950’s he played baseball just about every day. He also said he went to movies at the Tally Ho Theatre in Leesburg or the State Theatre in McLean. His family would do their shopping in Clarendon and Parkington in Arlington and Glebe Road. It was about an hour commute from home. He and his friends would eat fast food from the Dixy Pig in McLean and buy BBQ pork at Hot Shops and Little Tavern.

Jim was born in Rome, Italy in 1957 and his family moved to Sterling in the early 1960’s. Jim said his family mostly shopped in Herndon. He explained to the audience that Walt Booth had a shop on Route 7 and cut everyone’s hair. Each summer, his parents would buy him two pairs of Spalding shoes, two T-shirts, and one haircut to last the whole summer. While in high school, Jim spent time participating in local turkey shoots at the “Root’n Toot’n” Club sponsored by the Ruritans. They purchased targets at Crosen’s grocery store. Jim remembers Old Sterling as an intimate community where everyone appeared to be involved in church activity and knew each others families. Everything was community based. Jim said Hugh’s mother was his substitute teacher through the elementary and middle school years.

The casual evening of conversation is the first of three in a lecture series designed by the SHHPC to enable current Sterling residents to learn about the people, the history and the landscape of yesteryear. The SHHPC’s second lecture will be in Meeting Room A at the Sterling Library from 6:30 to 8:30 on Wednesday, February 21, 2018. Donna Bohanon, Chair of the Black History Committee (BHC) of the Friends of the Thomas Balch Library (Leesburg) will present the "African American Community of Sterling." She will share information found in BHC publications and resources at the Thomas Balch Library that includes information on the Nokes, Edes and Ewings families as well as Oak Grove Baptist Church.

The third lecture scheduled for April 11, 2018, will present prominent authors of a book on the W&OD (David Guillaudeu and Paul McCray) who will share some amazing photos and history of the railroad and its development from Alexandria to various end points as it changed ownership many times before finally closing in the late 60’s. The presentation will include the railroad's specific involvement with the Sterling community.

Also Neil Stern will be discussing the history (past glory) and demise of the Old Vestals Gap road which parallels Route 7.

If you are interested in learning more about the work of the SHHPC of The Sterling Foundation and/or have a story, photos or artifacts to share about Sterling’s past, please call or email Todd Gallant at trailpath@aol.com. The SHHPC is an all-volunteer committee and needs your donations, so please consider sending a tax-deductible donation to treasurer@sterlingfoundation.org. Make checks out to The Sterling Foundation and note that it is for the SHHPC.

About the Sterling Foundation and SHHPC

The Foundation is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit and is funded solely on the generous contributions of the public. The Foundation hosts the very successful Sterling Fest each fall, maintains Sterling Boulevard, and cleans local community streams and runs.

Recognizing the value of preservation of the Sterling District’s heritage, historical, and architectural assets, The Sterling Foundation at its meeting of January 12, 2016, established the Ad Hoc Sterling Historical and Heritage Preservation Committee (“SHHPC”), which serves in an advisory capacity to the Foundation. The SHHPC is one of The Sterling Foundation’s endeavors to keep the history of Sterling alive. The group works toward identifying and preserving these assets for future generations.

The SHHPC reports on its efforts to the full Sterling Foundation Board at every Foundation meeting.

The SHHPC’s general scope of work is to be an involved party in developing and implementing the historical and heritage components of Loudoun County’s comprehensive and general plans, economic development and environmental goals and zoning ordinances as they apply to the Sterling District.