George Mason's First "Campus": Baileys Crossroads

Armed with House Resolution No. 5 and the backing of Northern Virginia leaders and citizens, UVa set out to begin a branch college in Northern Virginia. Not wanting to lose momentum, the University started classes at the new University College in 1957 in a temporary building while a permanent site was being chosen. To satisfy this immediate need, an offer was made by the Fairfax County Schools to lease a recently-abandoned elementary school located on the south side of Columbia Pike, near Lake Barcroft. The owner of the building, Fairfax County Public Schools, agreed to lease the building to UVa for six-hundred dollars per year.

The Bailey’s Crossroads School, located at 5836 Columbia Pike, was built in 1922 and had eight classrooms. Though it had fallen into disrepair after thirty-four years, the building was serviceable and affordable, thereby enticing to UVa’s Board of Visitors (BOV). The offer of another school property in Arlington, the Brandon School (formerly Dolly Madison Middle School), which was located at 2300 Shirley Highway (now known as Interstate 395), just north of Glebe Road, was made in 1954 by

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