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A fading piece of Fairfax County’s agricultural history is coming down at Laurel Hill Park, where the former dairy and feed barns near the Laurel Hill Equestrian Center are being demolished for safety reasons.

The nine structures and three feeders once belonged to the Occoquan prison complex. Park officials said their removal is not connected to plans for new amenities. The roughly $238,600 project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, while Laurel Hill Park and its trails will remain open.

Another prison-era barn was removed about a decade ago when it was close to collapsing. The cleared land became the site of the equestrian ring established in 2014.

From Private Farm to Civil War Campsite

Elizabeth Violette was among the last private owners of the land where the dairy barn later stood. A widow, she purchased additional farmland in 1846 and combined it with property inherited from her husband, Thompson Violette, and land acquired after her first husband died.

An 1861 tax record listed her property as including three enslaved people, two horses, 10 cattle and five hogs.

During the Civil War, Violette’s large house served as a landmark and a campsite for the 2nd Pennsylvania Cavalry. No major battle occurred there, but the 4th Virginia Cavalry surprised Union troops at the site during an 1863 skirmish. Three Union soldiers were wounded or killed, 20 were captured and two Confederate soldiers were wounded.

Like neighboring farms, Violette’s 167-acre property likely suffered from declining productivity. She died in debt around 1873, and the land was divided into four tracts for her children. To settle her debts, the county commissioner’s office later ordered the sale of 84 acres described as being of good quality and well situated.

Luther Denty bought that land as part of a 212-acre purchase for $3,349, or about $16 per acre. The government seized the property in 1910 to establish a workhouse.

Prison Labor Revived the Land

The D.C. workhouse and reformatory began operating around 1910 to 1912. Prisoners managed an extensive farm with several agricultural operations.

Decades of tobacco production before the Civil War had nearly exhausted the local soil. Much of the land had been left fallow beginning in the 1840s and remained uncultivated until after the war.

Records indicate that horse manure collected from Washington streets was transported by barge down the Potomac River to a newly constructed landing on the Occoquan River. It was then used to fertilize land prepared for crops.

Inmate workers established an orchard, beef and hog operations, a poultry farm with chickens and geese, vegetable gardens and the dairy. They also grew corn, wheat and hay for animal feed. The farm supplied food for the prison population, with some of its production preserved for winter.

The workhouse and reformatory operations ended in 1968 as the facility shifted toward penitentiary use, first as a minimum-security prison and later as a maximum-security institution. It began housing people serving long sentences without the possibility of parole, including career criminals and prisoners considered dangerous. The prison ultimately closed in 2001.

Dairy Became the Last Operation Standing

The dairy continued after other workhouse activities ended. Around 1962, it moved to Furnace Road, where new dairy and feed barns were equipped with automated milking machinery. Milk from the operation was packaged and distributed to D.C. schools and hospitals.

Congress passed the Lorton Technical Corrections Act in October 1998, transferring the property to the General Services Administration ahead of its purchase by Fairfax County. The county was required to submit an acceptable reuse plan before acquiring it.

The dairy was the final prison operation to close. Residents driving along Hooes Road before the shutdown recall cows grazing where Laurel Hill Golf Club now stands.

Those cows were sold at auction in 1998 after producing more than 1,600 gallons of milk during their final year. Their sale ended both the prison dairy and commercial dairy production in Fairfax County.

Unsafe Barns Give Way to Empty Foundations

In recent years, chain-link fencing failed to prevent trespassing, vandalism and extensive graffiti throughout the barn complex. The property was also the site of a suicide.

Sections of the tin roof were missing, asbestos was suspected in the milking-barn area and officials determined that the deteriorated complex could not be salvaged.

Although the larger Lorton complex is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the dairy buildings are classified as non-contributing to its historic significance.

The concrete floors will remain to avoid disturbing possible archaeological features underneath. Two concrete silos at the barn site and a third farther away will also be preserved.

The cylindrical silos, about 35 feet in diameter, were built of masonry with exterior steel reinforcing rings spaced at three-foot intervals. Such structures were commonly used by dairies in the later 20th century to ferment and store corn and other cattle feed.

Other buildings from the workhouse and prison era remain scattered across the landscape, many obscured by overgrowth. Much of the former pasture is still open meadow, though invasive trees have spread into portions of it. Pieces of barbed-wire fencing and several metal cattle gates also survive.

Once the barns are gone, the preserved silos will be the most prominent markers of a site that traces Fairfax County’s transformation from farmland to prison complex and, eventually, public park.