The Story
Columbia Pike is one of the oldest thoroughfares connecting Arlington County to Washington DC. How did it come to be?
Columbia Pike began in 1808 as Columbia Turnpike Road. Congress chartered it to connect to Long Bridge across the Potomac and Little River Turnpike in Fairfax County.
In 1669 the largest landowner around the Pike was Roberty Howson. Eventually, the largest landowner around the Pike became George Washington Parke Custis of Arlington House.
The Civil War dramatically change life on Columbia Pike. Virginia left the Union and federal troops immediately occupied Arlington House as their headquarters.
The union then constructed Fort Runyon and Fort Albany around Columbia Pike.
Early in the war, Union soldiers at Arlington Mill were attacked by Confederate scouts who fled by handcar on the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad.
After the Emancipation Proclamation, newly freed slaves rushed into the area. Robert E. Lee’s former estate, Arlington House, was selected as the site for a semi-permanent Freedman’s Village. After the war it became a memorial for the Union soldiers known as Arlington National Cemetery,