This Year, Marking a Scrappy Start
Centennial Celebrations Will Revisit Del Ray's Juicy History of Gambling, Protests and Enterprise

By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 6, 2008

Del Ray has been called one of the best places to live in the Washington area. It was chosen as one of the top 10 cottage communities in the country. And it has been feted in national newspapers and magazines as a funky neighborhood "Where Main Street Still Exists."

And to think it all started 100 years ago with a run-down racetrack and a seedy gambling hall.

In 1908, the respectable and law-abiding residents of the newly built commuter suburbs of St. Elmo and Del Ray had had enough of the boozy betting and womanizing at the rather inaptly named Gentlemen's Driving Club situated right in their midst. They wanted to shut it down. ("There are no gentlemen at this club and there's been no driving in years," one critic spat.)

The Alexandria City Council was no help. Nor were the local police. Rumor had it that the gambling hall, which cleared about $150,000 a year in profit, also handsomely paid off its supporters on the council. The commonwealth's attorney estimated at the time that the club paid out $12,000 a year in graft, no small sum in turn-of-the-century America.

The commonwealth's attorney hadn't had much success over the years in the courtroom. In 1904, he had organized a posse of ax- and bat-wielding citizens who broke into the gambling hall, smashed the tables and big blackboard that listed the odds on all the horse races across the country, tore up the betting slip and threw the telegraph machines -- bets were still made and money wired via telegraph -- into the Potomac River.

That didn't work either.

"They just bounced right back; they were making so much money," said Leland Ness, Del Ray's unofficial historian.

The only thing the residents of Del Ray and St. Elmo could think to do next, Ness said, was to incorporate, pass their own laws, hire their own police and shut the place down. On March 15, 1908, that's exactly what they did. And the Town of Potomac was born.

The gambling hall "was frequented by the sorts of people you'd not want to meet in an alley at night and women of questionable virtues. And this was not the kind of place locals wanted," Ness said. "The history of Del Ray is really about local control, with people saying 'We're sick and tired of having laws enforced by people we can't vote for.' The racetrack is a very important part of the story," Ness said.

And now that Del Ray will be turning 100 on March 15, the community will be telling its story all year, with parades, proms, potlucks, silent auctions, tours of historic houses and community events with a centennial twist.

The fight against the St. Asaph racetrack -- which in its heyday from 1895 to 1897 had stables for hundreds of horses and an enormous grandstand -- united the community and forged its identity. (When Virginia outlawed horse racing in 1897, the track fell into disrepair, but the Hiawatha Pleasure and Social Club lived on.) It was the electric trolley from the District, which ran down Commonwealth Avenue, that created that community in the first place, one of the first bedroom communities in the country.

Before the trolley, which opened in 1896, only the wealthy could afford to live outside the city and commute. But the cheap and efficient trolley opened up the possibility for middle- and working-class folks to have their own little piece of breathing room outside the city. In 1894, Ohio developers Wood & Harmon bought two parcels of farmland, laid out streets and began selling lots for $135 to $150, with a $1 down payment. They lured would-be buyers with the prospect of a free one-year commuting ticket.

Unlike developers of other suburbs or controlled developments, Wood & Harmon allowed owners to build whatever style of house suited their fancy. So Del Ray and St. Elmo came to life with Victorians, Queen Annes, bungalows, foursquares and other architectural styles, which give Del Ray its eclectic edge. A 15-foot setback from the street was required, and saloons and slaughterhouses were forbidden.

Del Ray soon became home to federal workers as well as those employed at Potomac Yards, then the largest railroad switching yard on the East Coast. By 1924, Del Ray had grocery stores, bakeries, dry goods shops, barber shops and a movie theater. By 1930, after more than 10 contentious years of resistance from the Town of Potomac, the area was annexed by Alexandria. And by 1932, the electric railway was gone.

"What killed the rail was the automobile, and we were in the forefront of that as well," Ness said.

In 1915, Del Ray was the site of one of the first federal highway construction projects as officials experimented with road surfaces and planned to extend Mount Vernon Avenue from the 14th Street bridge to historic Mount Vernon.

The task of organizing many of the centennial events is in the hands of local resident and business owner Pat Miller. She likes to think of it as a celebration of 100 years of Del Ray "funkiness."

"We had the racetrack. We had our whorehouses. We were never a boring suburb," she said. "That's the way it was, and that's fun."

So, in addition to lectures at the Lyceum and the seven historical signs the city will install to provide the locations of and information about the old racetrack, the almshouse and other landmarks, Miller and others are planning a Centennial Parade along the old trolley line in May. Classic cars will represent each decade, and planners are hoping that the community will build an old-fashioned float with napkins and chicken wire.

"We have no clue yet" what the float will be, Miller said. Everyone will be encouraged to wear an old hat. And as with the community's annual Halloween Parade, everyone will be encouraged to be in the Centennial Parade, rather than watch from the sidelines.

There will be a historic-home and garden show and a neighborhood "prom" in the fall. The Saturday farmers market vendors will put together a book of old recipes, and the local frozen custard shop, the Dairy Godmother, is dreaming up a centennial flavor. And there will be centennial twists to all the usual neighborhood events, Miller said, such as the monthly First Thursday neighborhood sidewalk festivals and the annual Art on the Avenue street fair. A centennial tree might be planted.

Miller said her committee is collecting oral histories from old-timers and will record stories and photos in a book to donate to the library or make accessible to the community.

"Del Ray has such a wonderful, interesting, fun history, I'm hoping we don't lose that," she said. "We don't want people to forget what it's all about"

Craig Lancto of the Sun Newspapers of Alexandria said that in an area as mobile as the Washington region, learning about and understanding the past is key to keeping a community alive.

"With that sense that things have happened here, people can find their roots here," Lancto said.

Like Miller, Lancto's favorite Del Ray stories tend to the funky, like the constable who rode a moped in the years after World War I.

When called upon by the feds to help stop bootleggers running rum up Route 1, the constable confiscated the booze and brought it to the Town Hall, where the usual poker game was underway. By the time the feds showed up to retrieve the contraband booze, they found only empty cases.

It's in telling stories such as these and honoring the past, Lancto said, that Del Ray has retained what it means to be Del Ray. A neighborhood of front porches. An artist's haven. A main street with one-of-a-kind restaurants and stores such as Artfully Chocolate, Cheesetique and the Clay Queen. A place where Michelle Vaughan can kiss her 10-year-old daughter goodbye on their front porch and watch her walk two blocks by herself to her singing lesson at Acoustic Axis. Where Marcia Call can spot a neighbor and student walking to school and offer a ride.

"We live so close to Washington, and yet we retain that rural feel," Lancto said.

Over the years, Miller has seen the neighborhood change, with new people moving in all the time. The community events, such as the potluck at the old Town Hall and current fire station on New Year's Day, are a way to keep the conversation going between old-timers with the memories and newcomers with the thirst for belonging.

"We want people to understand the roots of what this community was all about," Miller said. "Del Ray was a funky neighborhood, and it continues to be a funky neighborhood."