page_title: Nauck, Virginia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Nauck, Virginia / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 04000038
context_page_description: Nauck is a neighborhood in the southern part of Arlington County, Virginia. It is bordered by Four Mile Run and Shirlington to the south, Douglas Park to the west, I-395 to the east, and Columbia Heights and the Army-Navy Country Club to the north. The southeastern corner of the neighborhood borders the City of Alexandria. The neighborhood was formerly known as "Green Valley," and in 2019, the Nauck Civic Association voted to change its name to the Green Valley Civic Association in recognition of this history and to request a formal neighborhood name change from the county board.
context_section_description: In 1719, John Todd and Evan Thomas received a land grant within the area that is now the Nauck neighborhood.  Robert Alexander later acquired the land. In 1778, Alexander sold his property to John Parke Custis, whereupon the land became part of Custis' Abingdon estate. 
  During the mid-1800s, Gustavus Brown Alexander owned much of the area that became Nauck, which at the time was called Green Valley. African Americans began to purchase property and settle in the Nauck area during that period.  Among the early African American property owners were Levi and Sarah Ann Jones.
  In 1859, the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad began operating to Vienna from a terminal in old town Alexandria. The rail line, which subsequently became branches of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, the Southern Railway, the Washington and Old Dominion Railway and the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, eventually reached the town of Bluemont at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1900. The line, which traveled through the valley of Four Mile Run, had stations named Nauck and (later) Cowdon where it crossed Shirlington Road. Although the line carried freight until it closed in 1968, passenger service through Nauck ended in 1932 during the Great Depression.
  During the American Civil War, the Union Army constructed Fort Barnard and other fortifications in the area. The army also established there a number of encampments for its troops, as well as a large convalescent camp bordered by a swamp. After the war ended in 1865, Thornton and Selina Gray, an African American couple that had earlier been slaves at Arlington House, purchased a small piece of property in the area in 1867.  
  During 1874-1875, John D. Nauck, a former Confederate Army soldier who had immigrated from Germany, purchased a 69 acres (28 ha) parcel of land in the area. Nauck, who held at least one political office in the area, lived on his property and subdivided and sold the remainder. 
  During the post-war period, the area attracted several African American families residing in Freedman's Village and other locations. In 1876, William Augustus Rowe, an African American who lived in Freedman's Village and was elected to a number of political positions, was among those who purchased property in the area during that period. In 1885, a “Map of the Town of Nauck, Alexandria County, Virginia" that resulted from an earlier land survey was recorded.
  Nauck grew slowly during the late nineteenth century. In 1874, a congregation initially organized in Freedman’s Village purchased land in the area on which to relocate a building containing an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Little Zion Church.  The church's building housed a public school that was later known as the Kemper School. In 1885, the Alexandria County school board built a one-room school nearby. The board constructed a new two-story brick school in 1893 at South Lincoln Street. The board later replaced that building with a larger facility that now contains the Drew Model Elementary School.
  In 1898, the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Railway constructed a branch of its interurban electric trolley system that began in Rosslyn, connected with lines that traveled to downtown Washington, D.C. and other points, and terminated a short distance north of the Southern Railway's Nauck (Cowdon) station (see: Nauck line (Fort Myer line)). The line paralleled the present South Kenmore Street and stimulated the neighborhood's development. The trolley line's Nauck station was located south of Steuben Street (now 19th Street South).
  However, the 1902 Virginia Constitution, which established racial segregation throughout the state and restricted the rights of African Americans, stopped the neighborhood's expansion. Property owners continued to subdivide their lands to accommodate more people, but Nauck's boundaries largely remained unchanged. 
  In 1922, the Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was constructed on 24th Road South between South Glebe Road (Virginia State Route 120) to the east and Shirlington Road to the
caption: Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (2012)
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