Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-01-18
QUANTICO EXPECTS
TORVAL ROPEWE[L
Evidence of Coming Boom Re-
veaIed in Recent Real ES-
tate Transaction.
DEAL JUST COMPLETED
FOR 1000 ACRES OF LAND
Washington Men Interested in Big
Improvement, the Nature of
Which Is Not Disclosed.
Special Staff Correspondence.

hours of every man, woman and child
of this place. The visions go to bed
with them at night and probably oc-
cupy the greater part of their dreams,
as well. Because a deal has been COM
pleted for the sale of more than 1000
acres of ground encircling this landing
place on the Potomac and stopping
place for a very few trains on the
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Poto-
mac railroad; the surveyors have run
the lines, huge piles of lumber have
begun to accumulate at several places
in and near the tiny village, and
group of men who were prominently
identified with the Hopewell develop
ment have had charge of the work.
OF course, all sorts of rumors, reports,
yarns and stories are to be heard in
the village. One man has learned from
reliable authority that the government
intends to establish here a huge plant
for the manufacture of steel armor
plates Another knows with equal posi-
tiveness that the du Pont powder peo-
pie have bought the land and are to
erect a mammoth establishment for the
manufacture of dyes. A third tells you,
conf1dentially, but with an air OF au.
that the prospective boom
really means the loca ton at Quantico
adjunctS of Atlantic City. And fourth
asserts that the government purposes
moving the testing grounds from inalan
Head to the tract that everybody KNOWS
has been surveyed and sold, and that
the big naval guns are to be tried out
in the hills back of Quantico.
total of Real Information.
About all that anybody seems actual
Iy to know, however. is that the 1000
acres or more-part of an s,o00-acre
tract owned by DIR. H. B. Hutchinson
of Herndon and Washington-has been
surveyed and sold. and that prices of
land in and near Quantico have ad-
yanced by kangaroo leaps in the last
few months.
There isn't any such thing as getting
in on the ground floor on the Quantico
boom whatever it may be. Because
the ground floor has been moved up
on the roof, and the roof has been
raised. Building lots along Quantico
single street-which stretches from the
Potomac to the railroad and then loses
itself in the clay hills above the VII
lage-which last summer could have
been bought for $3.50 each. are now
held for $1,000 or even more.
Acreage adjacent to the village.
what there is left of it. and that's
nightly littIe-that a year ago was
liberaJiy considered to be worth s2o an
acre, is held at anything from $1,000
up according to the imagination of the
owner. And land back in the red clay
hills. from which practically every
stick of merchantable timber has been
cut. and which year or so ago was
considered rather high priced at 50 an
acre-well, there aren't any quotations
on that land
c. L. Brawner owns one OF the three
general stores in the village. He has a
two-story building, but his stock only
occupies a part of the ground floor.
He leased the building for three years
at the "exorbitant' rental of sS
month, and. his lease, which is legal
and binding, has fifteen months to run.
That would make it's actual value for
the fifteen months just S120 One day
last week Mr.. Brawner was offered
$500 for his lease, the offer being made
by one of the men most intimately
connected with the Transaction by which
more than 1000 acres of land encir-
cling the village changed ownership.
Brawner refused the offer.
Another Washingtonian Interested.
Another Washington man who is in
terested in the project, whatever it is,
is Eldridge Jordan. who. it is said,
cleaned up half a million dollars in
the Hopewell development Associated
with Mr. Jordan are J. W. Long and
Mr.. Walters of Petersburg. Va, who
also were associated with him in the
HopewelI boom. r. II. Howard is an
other Petersburg man who is in on
the Ouantico project and who was ac
lively interested in the Hopewell boom
with Messrs. Long, Walters and Jordan.
men also are connected
with the project, but their identity has
not been disclosed
Inquiries made at the ofhces OF the
du Pont company at Wilmington. Del,
have been fruitless. Officials of the
deny any knowledge of the
Quantico project, and say they never
heard of Quantico. Men living here in
the village, however, declare that the
du Pont companys check for $125.O00
hands. through the Petersburg
and Washington men in the deal, and
these men claim to be in the confidence
of the people who are known to be
back of the project.
Surveyors have been working in the
hills around this village for the last
two or three weeks, as the weather
permitted. These men left here Satur-
day night Their work wasn't COM
pleted, however, and they expect to
return the latter part of this week to
finish il. Joseph Berry and Messrs.
Money and Taylor were three of the |
surve yors who reported by wire every
night, while they were here. to Messrs |
Long and Walters. at Petersburg. and |
Messrs. Hutchinson and Jordan in |
Somewhere back in the |
hills above the town the surveyors are |
declared to have run lines for streets |
and buildings of some sort, and it is |
known they ran lines from Quantico |
creek, north of the village, to Chappa- |
Namsic creek on the south. They also |
surveyed the land at each side of the |
village and running clear down to the |
Potomac.
Quantico's Population, $50.
Quantico has population of about
so persons. 1t is flag station on the
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Poto-
nae railroad The village consists of
single street, running from the river
N the railroad. Up on the hill is a
wo-story schoolhouse. and the village
,as single church, tiny one-story
rame structure nesting half way up
he hill west of the railroad. The town,
what there is of it, lies between Guam
leo and Chappawamsic creeks. which
re about two miles apart
Approximately twenty trains a day
.ach way pass through Quantico. Two
outhbound accommodations stop there
N week days, as do two similar trains
a. 1