The Arlington Historical Society (AHS) offers more information about the artifacts that we have on display at the County Fair this year. Here’s more about each item.
Gold Processing Crucible
In December 1877, gold was discovered at the foot of the Aqueduct Bridge (predecessor to the Key Bridge) in Rosslyn. The mine would make a few men some small fortunes for several years. Small scale gold mining operations occurred on both sides of the Potomac River into the 1930s.
Printed on the side of the crucible are the words: “Battersea Round;” the capital letter “E;” and “Morgan England.” This is a gold melting crucible, size E, manufactured by the Morgan Crucible company of Battersea, London, England. It was made in the first part of the 20th century and used for assaying gold. Crucibles like this were used in the mines, heated as very high heat in furnaces to reduce the ore samples to check for precious metal content. When melted, gold separates from the other melted ores. The Morgan Crucible Company was started in 1856 and gradually opened offices around the world, including, New York City in 1920.
Rosslyn may have a historic reputation for bars, gambling parlors, and being a red light district around the turn of the last century, but it also became an industrial center in Northern Virginia and this crucible, found with many others by a member of AHS at a construction site in Rosslyn is a testament to that.
Ink Blotter Advertising Arlington County Dairy
This advertisement for the Arlington County Dairy’s chocolate drink doubles as an ink blotter. The ad is on the front and the blue ink blotter is on the back. Used to absorb excess ink from fountain pens, blotters made a convenient place for ads.
The Arlington County Dairy was located at 2701 Wilson Blvd from 1925 until it was sold to the Alexandria County Dairy in 1945.
In 1925, a $35,000 pasteurizing and dairy plant was built in Arlington by the Marcey Brothers (Julius, Curtis, and Harvey Lee) on the corner of Wilson Boulevard and Holly Street (modern-day Danville Street), in the Clarendon section of Arlington.
Julius was the president of the company. Their original dairy was at 1240 28th Street NW in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC. It went by “Cherrydale Dairy” and “Julius Marcey Dairy.” It was located there from about 1906 to 1925. In 1925 when the Arlington County Dairy was built on Wilson Boulevard, Arlington was rural and there were plenty of dairy farms and plenty of space in Clarendon for a dairy.
In our display case at the fair, we have a fountain pen and and ink bottle. Fountain pens were dipped into the ink in the bottle and then used to write. It could get messy, so blotters were commonly used to soak up the excess without obliterating the handwriting.
Tobacco Pipe
This is a replica of an 18th century clay tobacco pipe. The long stem cooled the smoke before inhaling. Native Americans invented clay pipes and they were the first to cultivate tobacco. During the colonial era, tobacco became Virginia’s cash crop and shipments to England were treated like currency. With tobacco came a new industry, pipe-making. Thousands of clay pipes have been unearthed at colonial American home sites, including many at the Ball-Sellers House. The pipes broke easily and were relatively inexpensive to buy, costing about 50 cents each in today’s money. The small protrusion below the bowl enabled the smoker to rest the pipe with the bowl up so the tobacco wouldn’t fall out.
Civil War Shell Fragments
1861-1865. Arlington’s Civil War forts had mortars like this model. The forts helped protect the Capital City from possible Confederate attack. In what became Arlington, the forts were a ring around DC along the heights above the Potomac River. Thousands of troops were stationed at them. They drilled, marched, and practiced firing artillery and mortar.
Mortars were heavily used by both sides during the Civil War. They were designed to explode above enemy troops, showering them with fragments. The mortars would have been pointed away from DC to target an advancing enemy attack from the south or west. Periodic practice with mortar shells during the Civil War must have left a lot of fragments in what would become Arlington County. Arlingtonians have found heavy metal fragments in their gardens and yards for generations.
Wax Phonograph Cylinder
1902-1912. This is an Edison Gold-Moulded wax recording cylinder. It was invented by Thomas Edison as he worked to refine the process and product of sound recording. Wax recording cyclinders became the standard procedure. His new “Gold-Moulded” process, developed in 1902, significantly improved the sound quality of earlier versions and made the production process easier. The process involved creating a metal mold from a wax master; a brown wax blank could then be put inside the resulting mold and subjected to a pre-established and precisely calibrated level of heat. As the blank expanded, the grooves would be pressed into the blank, and after cooling, the newly molded cylinder could be removed from the mold. The “gold” from its namesake is derived from the trace levels of the metal that were applied as a conductive agent in creating the initial mold from the wax master.
With Edison Gold-Moulded cylinders, playback speed was standardized at 160 revolutions per minute (RPM). At this revolution speed, a cylinder played for about 2-3 minutes. Improvements in sound quality enabled Edison’s cylinder recordings to sell in greater numbers, starting in 1902.
The popular songs, instrumental pieces, and vaudeville routines of the day formed the bulk of the Edison Gold-Moulded series. Between 1902 and 1912, when these cylinders were discontinued, thousands of titles were recorded and issued. In the Wax Phonograph photo below, the wax cylinder is orange.
Ford Trimotor Aircraft Model
This is a 1930 model of the Ford Trimotor (or Tri-Motor) aircraft owned and operated by the Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) which became Trans World Airlines (TWA). The airplane was nicknamed the “tin goose.” Production began in 1925 and ended in 1933; 199 were made. For the era of early commercial flight, this aircraft was well designed, relatively inexpensive, and reliable. The combination of a metal structure and simple systems led to their reputation for ruggedness and rudimentary service could be accomplished “in the field” with ground crews able to work on engines using scaffolding and platforms.
Transcontinental Air Transport The Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) was the first US airline associated with railroads (Pennsylvania and Santa Fe) in providing a rapid form of coast to coast transportation service. In 1929, transcontinental trips began, initially offering a 48-hour coast to coast trip–trains by night, and planes by day in nine flights. (Photo at left shows inside the Trimotor aircraft cabin).
This was one of the first airplanes to fly into the airport in Arlington. Hoover Field was started in 1925 by Thomas Mitten, head of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. He wanted to begin daily passenger flight service between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. as part of the 150th celebration of the Declaration of Independence. He selected an area on the present-day Pentagon site that was just big enough for a single grass runway and hangar. The airfield was named Hoover Field, after the then-Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. Safety was poor. Smoke from a nearby trash landfill that was always on fire frequently obscured the runway. Military Road, a major thoroughfare, crossed the runway. Power and telephones made landing and take off-even more hazardous.
Washington Airport (shown in photo at left with a Trimotor on the bottom left) was the second airport. It opened in 1927 adjacent to Hoover Field. Washington Airport built three new runways, including one that was paved. Only slightly less hazardous to planes and those on the ground, the airport paid the electric and telephone companies to bury their lines.
During the Depression, the two airports suffered severe financial losses so they merged to become Washington-Hoover Airport. Still a hazardous airfield, pilots, including Charles Lindbergh, called it the most dangerous airport in the world. It closed when Washington National Airport opened in June 1941.