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ABOUT US
The Glen Forest Community Association is an all-volunteer run organization that works to support the Glen Forest neighborhood.
The Glen Forest community is situated within the Bailey's Crossroads area of Fairfax County, Virginia. We are located approximately 5 miles south of Washington, DC, the Pentagon and Reagan National Airport. It is roughly bounded by Leesburg Pike, Glen Carlyn Road, the Fairfax/Arlington County lines, and the Crossroads Center Shopping area.
OUR COMMUNITY
Glen Forest comprises about 400 homes, built mostly in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The primary entrance is via Glen Forest Drive (off of Leesburg Pike) that ends at the Glen Forest Elementary School.
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The neighborhood also includes a 6.8 acre park with a swimming pool and bathhouse. Long Branch Creek runs the length of the park.
NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY
Bailey's Crossroads draws its name from the Bailey family of circus fame, which has long been connected with the community. Hachaliah Bailey (the founder of one of America's earliest circuses, which in time evolved into the Bailey component of what became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus) moved to Northern Virginia in 1837, bought the land surrounding the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Columbia Pike in Fairfax County, Virginia near Falls Church, Virginia, and gave Bailey's Crossroads his name. The Crossroads then became the winter quarters for his circus.The opening months of the American Civil War proved to be a disruptive and unforgettable episode in the history of Bailey's Crossroads. From the summer of 1861, when the area fell into an uncomfortable and poorly defined "no man's land" between the borders of two warring countries, until late November of that year, when the area hosted a massive troop review, anything akin to normalcy was in short supply.After the Civil War Bailey's Crossroads returned to its pastoral pre-war pursuits. The area remained a rural farming community until the post-World War II years, when a massive wave of development occurred. Leesburg Pike is now a commercial corridor, with apartments and homes to its north and south.During the 1960s, as Washington's Metro system was being conceived, original plans called for a subway line to extend under Columbia Pike to and through Bailey's Crossroads. As a result of the plan a massive highrise complex was built on the former Washington-Virginia Airport in the heart of Bailey's Crossroads called Skyline City. Its location coincided with the planned locations of Metro stations. Plans for the Metro, however, changed. The western line was placed along the I-66 corridor instead.Schools:Fairfax County Public Schools operates public schools. Glen Forest Elementary School is the primary school attended by most children living in the area, and the local schools feed Glasgow Middle School and Justice High School.
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