Bull Run Dance Hall

Bull Run Dance Hall (also known as Bull Run Park) was located near the Bull Run bridge on Rte. 28 – just inside Fairfax County. Irving Jackson Breedan (or IJ) ran the dance hall on his property adjacent to the Manassas Battlefield site. IJ was born in 1898 and spent time as a machinist at the navy yard, driving an ice truck in DC, and finally a grocer. He and his wife Jennie worked their way up the financial ladder and became large landowners around the Bull Run area and ended up selling their land for a small fortune. In the forties they built some houses along Rte. 28, three miles north of Yorkshire Village and later built 15 homes between West and Battle St. extended.

However, before the family hit it big in land speculation, IJ ran the rough and tumble Bull Run Dance Hall probably located here.   The dance hall was active from the late twenties until the late forties featuring local musical acts and a lively crowd. During Prohibition, the parking lot was a source for bootleg liquor and Sheriff EP Kirby and his deputies often worked undercover and busted bootleggers and buyers as they made the deal. In 1929, they busted a car load of revelers from Good Hope Rd. SE buying from Harvey Shelton, 29, of F St, NW. In 1932, as part of a crackdown on liquor, Kirby and his men raided the dance hall a number of times and arrested tons of people for drinking.

In May 1930, IJ’s brother Nicholas Marron Breeden found himself in serious trouble with the law. Nicholas played banjo in the house band, but he lived in DC. He was giving a young waitress named Myrtle Carter a ride home to East Capitol St. in DC and somewhere around Pender Drive he assaulted her. However, Nicholas was married to woman named Louise. After the assault Nicholas dropped Myrtle at the Key Bridge and sped away to his place on N St. Shortly after, police arrested Nicholas and brought him to Fairfax to face his charges. That night, he joined another inmate in prying bricks from the jailhouse wall and escaped. Two days later, police found him laying in a hayfield in Prince William County.

In 1931, Deputy Magarity went to the dance hall to arrest a black man named Curtis McLaughlin for shooting a black woman in Fairfax in 1930 and for PW for shooting a man in Thoroughfare, VA. However, Magarity encountered a fight going on outside between a white man and a black man. When he arrived one of the brawlers, Arvin Harris, lifted his pistol at Magarity’s head and fired twice, but the pistol misfired. Arvin then ran for his car, but Deputy Magarity grabbed him and another black man hit him on the head with a bottle. Then Sheriff Kirby arrived and helped Magarity arrest everyone. Harris would eventually get a year in jail for attempted murder.

It’s surprising to learn that the dance hall served both blacks and whites because we typically think of this era as one of strict segregation and it’s hard to imagine blacks and whites dancing to the same music. However, the idea of black music and white music (or even musical genres) was largely an invention of New York record labels during the twenties to more effectively market. Black and whites played basically the same music in rural areas that would be popular hits from the day so it would not have been strange to find blacks and whites seeing the same live music. However, it seems likely that the dance hall had segregated sections for white and black patrons dancing to the same band, but there is a chance they shared the same space, but didn’t dance together.

In 1947, Bennie Smith and Nobel Jackson had a quarrel in the dance hall because Jackson had been arguing with Bennie’s sister, Frances. Bennie tried to take Frances home, but Nobel sideswiped his car before he could finally escape. After he dropped Frances at her trailer west of Kamp Washington, he saw Nobel go in to it. Bennie got a gun and called Nobel outside and shot him dead.

Bull Run Dance Hall closed sometime in the late forties as the development of Bull Run Park and the Battlefield began.

Hunter's Lodge t-shirts

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Elton Wakefield

Here's a photo of Elton Wakefield, fiddler for the Virginia Corn Huskers. 

Happy Hour Pavilion

The Happy Hour Pavilion was a dance hall operating on Lee Highway from at least the late thirties until around 1950 located in the current Capital Rentals building at 12716 Lee Highway. The building was built in 1928, but the earliest record of it being a dance hall is during the late thirties when it was operated by Michael Mohr. Mohr (b. 1891) was a German Catholic immigrant and a highly respected citizen in Fairfax County who owned the parcel of land along Lee Highway where Happy Hour was. In 1939 he ran for Sheriff, but lost to Eppa Kirby, who would go on to form the Fairfax County Police Department. Mohr died in 1952 and is buried at St. Mary’s in Fairfax County.

The first ad of Happy Hour is from February 18, 1938 featuring Bill McLean’s High Hatters on Saturdays and Elton Wakefield’s Virginia Corn Huskers played Wednesdays. Both bands are a bit of a mystery and don’t seem to have made it beyond gigs in Fairfax County. Elton H. Wakefield was a popular band leader and fiddler in Northern Virginia at the time and played at Dixie Tea Garden in Merrifield among other engagements. Elton, living on Columbia Pike in Falls Church, was a Fairfax native, born in 1892 and during the day he worked as a machinist for the Navy. Elton died in 1964. I can’t find any information about the other members of the Virginia Corn Huskers. Bill McLean’s High Hatters are a total mystery. It appears there were a few bands based in DC around the same time sharing the name the High Hatters. One was a vaudeville act and another featured two women and a piano player.

Unlike other dance halls like Social Circle, Bull Run, and Chimney Villa, Happy Hour seemed to be the spot for the more law abiding set since it is never mentioned as a trouble spot. Perhaps Mohr’s campaign for sheriff is testament to the type of place he ran. About the craziest thing that happened there was a young woman broke her ankle while attempting the Charleston for the first time. The article from the time describes a hillbilly band playing square dances and old favorites before breaking into a spirited rendition of the Charleston. It seems moving from a square dance to the wild abandonment of the Charleston was too much for that crazy kid.

For some reason, perhaps a zoning issue, Happy Hour closed during 1943 and 1944. Mohr tried to sell the property, but then applied for rezoning as a dance hall and resumed operations in late 1944. This time period is especially odd because the dance halls were booming with so many young servicemen in the area looking for a good time. Upon reopening, Raymond Woolfenden managed the dance hall Woolfenden was in the twilight of a country music DJ career under the moniker Cousin Ray. He was inducted into the Country Radio Broadcasters in 1999.

Sometime in the late forties Happy Hour was taken over by Tom and Bob Lion. On March 25, 1949 Happy Hour featured Tom and Bob Lion and their “all-string band” The Gentlemen from Dixie. The advertisement boasts of “round dances, Paul Jones, square dances and all requests. Sadly, Happy Hour ceased operations sometime in the early fifties. During the seventies this location became an antique shop operating until 1985 when it became Capital Rentals. The building still stands at 12716 Lee Highway.

Fairfax High School Yearbook 1944

Chimney Villa Dance Hall



Ad from Circa 1942

 Chimney Villa operated on Lee Highway between Falls Church and Merrifield during the thirties and forties. It was probably located near the intersection of West St. and Lee Highway 2 miles west of Falls Church. James G. Bennett opened the dance hall in early 1931 hosting the Chimney Villa Boys and according to an article at the time, it was “popular with the younger set.” The members of the Chimney Villa Boys are lost to history. The Chimney Villa Boys’ also performed on Mondays at 8pm on WJSV, a radio station located near Mt. Vernon with a transmitter in Potomac Yards. WJSV was started in 1929 by James S. Vance, a Grand Wizard of KKK and publisher the Fellowship Forum (a Klan front publication). During this same time, WJSV had become the local CBS affiliate, but CBS was shocked to learn they were in bed with the Klan and were in the process of buying the station. In the 1940s the station became WTOP in the 40s.


During prohibition, Chimney Villa was a site of regular liquor raids netting local residents with “ardent spirits.” In the early forties it advertised dancing on Wednesdays and Saturdays as well as groceries, gas, barbecue, drinks, and lunches. The dance hall was destroyed in a fire in April 1944. At 10 PM firefighters were called from Vienna and Falls Church and they extinguished the fire in the ceiling, but it was apparently still smoldering and reignited burning the building to the ground.

Hunter's Lodge: Images from history

Settin’ the Woods on Fire: Hunter’s Lodge and the Lee Hwy Dance Halls

Back in the thirties, forgotten dance halls dotted Lee Highway, from Merrifield out to Centreville and beyond. Many of them exist only in legend now including Chimney Villa in Merrifield, Bull Run Dance Hall in Centreville, Happy Hour, Green Dolphin, and Pine Lawn at Fairfax Circle. Many of these dance halls were rough places that were centers of illegal drinking, fighting, and other disreputable activities. At Chimney Villa a patron stuck a pistol against the head of Fairfax County police officer and pulled the trigger, but luckily for the cop, the gun didn’t fire. During prohibition, dance hall parking lots were hotspots for buying illegal liquor to get revelers' blood warm before heading in to dance. All these activities caused the local elected officials much consternation and led to a crackdown on dance halls. Throughout the thirties, local governments passed onerous regulations on dance halls that effectively retarded the growth of live music venues in Northern Virginia in the coming decades. The center of live music in the DC area would begin a shift towards more favorable places like PG County and downtown DC and the few remaining live venues in NOVA would struggle along.

One dance hall that managed to survive this conservative crackdown was Hunter’s Lodge on Lee Highway at West Ox Rd. Hunter’s Lodge first appeared in late 1939 in the Fairfax Herald advertising “modern construction throughout”; square dances; and appearances by the Bull Run Ramblers and the Vienna Syncopators. In 1941 the Wash Post was touting its log construction and big fireplace with “Ernie Sparks’ up-and-coming band”. By 1943, it was so popular that the owners remodeled with an addition to the club. By the late forties, Hunter’s Lodge was a venue for pop and dance music such as Ernie Clay’s Orchestra sponsored by the Fairfax VFW.

In 1948, Hunter’s Lodge hosted the Arlington Optimists for a night of “horse racing.” The Optimists were having a benefit for their community work by watching films of horse racing and placing bets. Now what is gambling without something to wet the whistle? The Optimists broke out the liquor and beer while they watched the horse racing films. Naturally, the nothing-better-to-do Fairfax police arrived and raided the event. The owner of Hunter’s Lodge, CK Vance (of 506 N. Highland in Arlington), was arrested for serving liquor on the premises and serving beer after hours. The leaders of the Optimists were arrested for gambling. Ultimately, the ABC Board didn’t shut the dance hall down and it soldiered on. However, shortly after this incident, the ads began to say BYOL and BYOB, which means the club wasn’t allowed to serve, but could host alcohol. Only in Fairfax County would this happen.

By the late fifties, Hunter’s Lodge was still hosting big band music, but it may have been facing some financial hard times because the Fairfax zoning board shut down a daycare operating during the day in the club. By the time it was shut down, the daycare had operated for two months with 16 children. Not long after that, Hunter’s Lodge shifted to straight country music.

In 1960 many legendary country musicians played the Lodge including “Mister Country” Carl Smith with Sammy Pruitt (Hank Williams’ Guitarist), Jimmy Dickens, and Kitty Wells with Johnny & Jack and the Tennessee Mountain Boys. During this time, the ads touted the beauty and air-conditioning of the Lodge. In 1962 Ernest Tubbs played and saw Elmer Buddy Charleton playing and Elmer soon joined the Texas Troubadors on steel guitar.  In around 1961, a western theme park opened next door called Old Virginia City featuring a replica old west town and an American Indian village.  Old Virginia City seems to have disappeared in the late sixties. 

By the 1970s Hunter’s Lodge was no longer advertising in local as it evolved into an outpost in the changing landscape of Fairfax County. The Lodge became known for great country music, a fun-loving and sometimes rough crowd, and a sense of days gone by. It was a mecca for country fans coming from all over the region searching for something other than disco.

In 1978, the Lodge reappeared in the Wash Post as an unwitting site of an infamous crime. Deborah Fitzjohn was a 25-year old secretary living in Centreville who headed out for a night of fun in Fairfax on a Friday night. She was never seen again, but her car was found in the parking lot of Hunter’s Lodge. In 1986, John Crutchley, AKA the Vampire Rapist, was implicated, but police never had enough to charge him. Crutchley was known as the Vampire Rapist because he would withdraw blood from his victims and drink it. When Fitzjohn disappeared, Crutchley was living in Waples Mobile Home Estates near Fairfax City.

In 1982, Tommy Sanders took over and the Lodge became host to local favorites like Rick Cooper & Third Shift, Stringdusters, Heavy Country, and others. Legend has it that many famous country musicians, like Merle Haggard, would show up after their shows in larger venues. In 1985, the club suffered a fire that left extensive smoke damage and some have claimed it was an attempt to burn the place and collect insurance.  The club closed sometime around 1986 to make way for a Costco since the new crowd in Fairfax would rather shop than listen to rowdy country.

A Bone to Pick

Mark Opsasnick wrote a wonderful book called "Capitol Rock" that I've been wading through. The book covers the late country and early rock and roll period in Washington DC when great artists like Link Wray ruled the club circuit. I have one bone to pick with the book.

Mark claims that Northern Virginia didn't have much of a club scene, but I don't agree. There was a slew of nightclubs along Lee Highway and Wilson Blvd in Arlington such as Covered Wagon then heading out Rte. 29 there were a number of dancehalls between Fairfax City and Centreville including Social Circle, Hunters Lodge, Bull Run Dance Hall. Many of these were notorious for rowdy brawls and hillbilly music (you can see many of them on the side of this page). Northern Virginia was the center of bluegrass music with nightclubs such as the Admiral Grill and the Birchmere. I hope as this blog goes on I can begin capturing the richness of the area's music.