This text documents the story of the building which has stood at the center of almost two centuries of political life in Fairfax County. The extensive footnotes will prove an invaluable aid to scholars exploring the history of the county. History students in our county's schools will find _The Fairfax County Courthouse_ an important addition to their reading lists. We are all indebted to Ross Netherton and Ruby Waldeck for their contribution in casting such a revealing light upon the roots of Fairfax County, her people and government. James E. Hoofnagle Clerk of the Fairfax County Court INTRODUCTION Each generation of Americans has acknowledged its debt to Virginia's leaders whose skill in politics was demonstrated so well in a half-century that saw independence achieved and a new republic established. They were products of a system of government which itself had been perfected over more than 150 years before the colonies declared their independence. To these men--George Washington, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Marshall, George Wythe, James Madison, and the Carters--the County court was an academy for education in the art of government. Important as it was to sit in the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, the lessons of politics and public administration were learned best in the work of carrying on the government of a county. Virginia counties were unique in colonial history, for the considerable degree of autonomy enjoyed by the County courts gave them both a taste of responsibility for a wide range of public affairs and a measure of insulation from the changes of political fortune which determined events in Williamsburg, and later Richmond. In Virginia, the county courthouse was the focal point of public affairs. Usually built in a central location, with more regard for accessibility from all corners of the county than for proximity to established centers of commerce, the courthouse came to be a unique complex of buildings related to the work of the court. In time, most of these clusters of buildings grew into towns or cities, but throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many places shown on Virginia maps as "Court House" consisted literally of a county courthouse and its related structures standing alone beside a crossroads. On court days, however, the scene changed. The monthly sessions of the court, conducted in colonial times by the "Gentleman Justices", provided opportunities to transact all manner of public business--from issuing licenses and collecting taxes to hearing litigation and holding elections. They also were social events and market days; there people came to meet their friends, hear the news, see who came circuit-riding with the justices, sell their produce, and buy what they needed.