CPHD
Our Neighborhoods
Nauck
Location
The Nauck neighborhood is located in the southern part of Arlington County. It is bounded on the northeast by the Army-Navy Country Club and South Glebe Road, on the northwest by South Walter Reed Drive, on the southeast by Shirley Highway (Interstate Route 395) and on the southwest by South Four Mile Run Drive. An older established neighborhood, Nauck is characterized by single family detached housing units, most of which were built during the 1960’s and the 1970’s. A large number of the older homes are currently occupied by families who have lived in the neighborhood for all of their lives and family households are the predominant household type.
History
The area that now comprises the Nauck neighborhood was originally granted to John Todd and Evan Thomas in 1719. The land was later acquired by Robert Alexander and sold to John Parke Custis in 1778, becoming part of the Abingdon Estate. Until the Civil War era, the area remained farmland with few structures. Free blacks, such as Levi and Sarah Ann Jones, who built a house in 1844, owned land prior to the Civil War in what is now Nauck.
The war brought about significant changes to the area. Fort Barnard was constructed late in 1861 to command the approaches to Alexandria by way of Four-Mile Run and Glebe Road and a convalescent camp was established nearby, providing employment for some people who lived in Nauck.
After the war, the area attracted several families from Freedmen's Village (located near what is now Foxcroft Heights) and other locations. In 1874, John D. Nauck, Jr., a resident of Washington, DC, bought 46 acres of land in south Arlington to begin subdividing it; and the neighborhood of Nauck as it is known today began to form.
In that same year, land was purchased for the relocation of the Little Zion Church (now Lomax AME Zion Church), a congregation that was first organized in the Freedmen's Village in 1865-66. The church building at the new site, which also served as a public school, first opened in 1875 (later known as the Kemper School). The School Board built a one-room school in 1885. In 1893, a new two-story brick school was constructed at South Lincoln Street and was later replaced by a larger building, now known as Drew Elementary.
Neighborhood Landmarks
- Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
