As had been the case during the earlier canal and turnpike development periods, a group of private investors incorporated the Orange and Alexandria Railroad Com­pany in 1848.1 The Board of Directors and stockholders wished to develop transportation which could move raw materials such as tobacco and wheat from the interior of the Commonwealth to eastern markets, and manufactured goods westward. Passenger travel was also to be encouraged.2

A map of the Alexandria or eastern end of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, just prior to the Civil War. Viryinia State Library.

The railroad was finished from Alexan­dria to Tudor Hall (Manassas Junction) in 1852, and to Gordonsville, where it con­nected with the Virginia Central (from Richmond) in 1854. In building the line through Fairfax County, the conflict be­tween engineering efficiency and local ambition was settled by a compromise which satisfied neither. "Both Fairfax and Brentsville [then county seat of neighbor­ing Prince William] were left off the railroad and the line was diverted over the heavy Fairfax grade, a solution for which four generations of firemen have paid un­told gallons of sweat."3 After the deep cut through the Fairfax Station area, the railroad followed the valley of Popes Head Creek west to the point where it enters Bull Run, bridging that stream at the longest natural east-west break in the cliffs. Among the stations established along the way were Burke's Station, Fair­fax Station, Sangster's Station, and Union Mills.4

Union Mills, Fairfax County, Virginia, where Federal troc. were stationed on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. From a /906 postcard, courtesy of Helen E. Buckley.

Enthusiastic leading citizens of Fau­quier County, seeing the Orange and Alexandria progressing well, incorporated the Manassas Gap Railroad Company in 1850.5 Construction of their rail line was completed from Manassas Junction to Mount Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley by 1858. Because costly trackage rights had to be leased annually from the O & A to continue the Gap line rolling stock from Manassas Junction on to Alex­andria, the directors decided to build an independent, somewhat parallel line into Alexandria. Surveys were made, proper­ty was purchased, and grading was begun in 1853. Some bridge abutments were even built, but due to financial difficulties in 1858, no track was ever laid. Some shadowy evidence of the unrealized plan still remains on Fairfax lands in the trackless gulleys and unbridged abutments in yards and fields across the county. The advent of the Civil War in 1861 effectively killed the Manassas Gap rail project from Manassas Junction to Alexandria; the waging of the war totally destroyed the line completed to Mount Jackson.6

The City of Alexandria was enthusiastic about the constuction of the Orange and Alexandria, believed strongly in its healthy future, and initially subscribed to $100,000 of capital stock anticipating the commercial advantage of the road to the city.7 Like many individual Fairfax Coun­ty landowners, Edward Sangster and Mary K., his wife, gave part of their land to the railroad for the sum of one dollar, and caused the following statement to be recorded in the deed book: "it is thought by them that such passage of the said Railroad will increase the value of their Property and be otherwise beneficial to them..."g On the other hand, William E. Beckwith, like several other local residents, was unwilling to donate any of his land to the railroad. The county therefore appointed five freeholders to assess damages for condemnation pur­poses by the railroad and the report was returned to the court by Jacob Makely at the September 1850 term. The O & A Railroad was thereafter built across Beckwith land.9

Post offices were opened along the line beginning in 1852. Burke's Station (named after Colonel Silas Burke, a state director of the O & A), John A. Marshall, postmaster, and Sangster's Station, William E. Ford, postmaster, were established in March of that year; Fairfax Station, Thomas J. Haycock, postmaster, in April. Union Mills station was designated Dyes Mill post office, James S. Buckley, postmaster, in 1855. This name was chosen in order to avoid confusion with a Union Mills which already existed in Fluvanna County, Virginia.10