The Admiral Grill

Northern Virginia was a center for the development of country music and especially blue grass as I’ve mentioned before on this blog. One of the legendary moments in the expansion of blue grass beyond local hillbilly migrants came in 1957 at a local watering hole called the Admiral Grill. The Admiral Grill was located on Columbia Pike at the current site of the storage company and stood roughly where the main office/entrance currently stands. The restaurant was there from at least the mid-fifties until the mid-sixties before becoming a restaurant called Westwoods, then a furniture store and finally a storage company. Back in the late fifties and early sixties was just a simple crossroads with a few small restaurants and an airport at the current site of Skyline Towers.

In 1957, Northern Virginia was filled with musicians playing a new brand of “folk” music that was a new take on old-time mountain music. It was called a variety of things before the name blue grass stuck deriving from the name of Bill Monroe’s backing band, the Bluegrass Boys. The sound was very popular among the transplanted Virginians and Carolinians yearning for the sounds of home, but it was stuck being played in small bars and restaurants with limited appeal.

The event happened by accident on July 4, 1957 when the Buzz Busby’s Bayou Boys were heading back to DC after playing a gig on the Eastern Shore when their car crashed. The band’s banjo player, Bill Emerson, had been riding in a separate car and was determined to keep the gig that night at Admiral Grill. He called on a guitarist, Charlie Waller, mandolinist John Duffey, and bassist Larry Leahy to fill in.

The gig went so well that the group formed a band and settled on the Country Gentleman because the members were city boys rather than “mountain boys”. The band they would go on to form was different from many country or folk bands playing around DC because they were young and spent most of their lives in an urban setting.

The band would become the most important and influential bluegrass band and formed a second-generation of bluegrass musicians that would spearhead the growth and popularity, particularly in the DC area. The band took influences from many genres, moving the music beyond its strict mountain roots by exploring rock and jazz. This widened bluegrass’ audience beyond the ex-mountain people into young urban kids from blue collar bikers to college kids.

The music would find a home in the Birchmere on Four Mile Run Dr. in Arlington and the Shamrock on M Street in Georgetown where rowdy hillbillies and college kids would mingle to the changing sounds of bluegrass.

Sadly, besides this single evening of fame, almost nothing is known about the Admiral Grill. The building was unceremoniously torn down to make way for development of the storage company and Radley Acura. If you drive behind Radley, you can get a sense of what Bailey’s Crossroads was like before the current development. One building that stood at the same time as the Admiral Grill was the service garage for Radley Acura, which was a auto repair shop. Otherwise, the Admiral Grill lives on in legend only.

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.

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.

The Herndon Riot

Years ago I remember watching the local news and seeing the Fairfax County Police triumphantly unveiling their brand new riot tank, which was a state of the art armored car equipped to handle any kind of crowd disturbance. It was a classic example of a police department with too much money and too much time on its hands. My buddies and I laughed at the prospect of frenzied looting masses on the boring streets of Fairfax County. It turns out we were wrong and there was a riot in Fairfax County and it was a critical moment in the county’s relationship with its black residents.

The incident on started on a Friday afternoon in August 1974 when Felix “Catman” Rorls entered the 7-11 on Elden Street in Herndon about 4:30 PM to get some chocolate milk. Rorls had turned 26 ten days prior and was out with a group of friends. FCPD Officer John Mueller entered the 7-11 behind Rorls and demanded to see his license. The two men had been involved in a previous confrontation when Mueller busted Rorls for driving on a suspended license. When Mueller demanded to see his license Rorls replied “Why do I need a license in 7-11?” The events that followed are a little sketchy, but it seems that Mueller shoved Rorls through the glass cooler and hit him with his nightstick. Rorls proceeded to the register, bleeding profusely, and tried to pay for his milk. Mueller put his nightstick down on the counter and tried to handcuff Rorls. Rorls grabbed the nightstick and began beating Mueller, who fell down and drew his gun firing four to five shots at Rorls. Mueller wept as he and Rorls went to the hospital for treatment, but Rorls died of his wounds.

Mueller was a 31 year old white 8 year veteran of the FCPD. The department had been racked by years of rising citizen complaints of brutality and inept policing. The police force had a rate of solving crimes well below the national average and had only reluctantly brought on a small number of minority and women officers. Female officers had filed multiple sexual harassment complaints and the five black officers complained of discrimination.

Rorls was a black man from Clifton originally and had struggled after losing his mother when he was 11 years old. He had learning disabilities and had moved between various relatives as he grew up. By 1974 he was working Smith’s Trash Service and lived in Apartment 102 in Herndon Gardens.

Shortly after the shooting, a crowd of 70-100 gathered at the 7-11 and began simmering about the Fairfax police. This crowd was quickly dispersed, but the fuse had been lit. A couple of hours later about 300 people gathered at the Dulles Park Shopping Center and began throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. Someone threw four firebombs into the Virginia ABC liquor store causing extensive damage. Police tried to disperse the crowd, but were met with a hail of rocks and bottles. For three hours police worked frantically to put out the many small fires caused by the rioters. Somehow the officer in charge, Cpl. Leonard Smith arranged a meeting with leaders of the mob and they demanded a meeting with Fairfax Prosecutor Robert Horan. Horan recently retired and had gained a reputation for being an exceptional prosecutor, but he was also known for not pursuing police brutality cases. The crowd demanded from Horan that he prosecute Mueller and Horan promised to examine the case and make a “prosecutorial judgment.” Amazingly, the mob agreed to these terms in withdrew.

The next night a small crowd gathered at the Dulles Park Apartments, but they dispersed when the riot police withdrew. The case was probed by a grand jury, which ultimately found no basis to indict Mueller. The county settled with Rorls’ family for a scant $25,000.

The riot was a culmination of years of building frustration in the Fairfax County black community. It laid bare the neglect and racism of a county transitioning from a sleepy southern backwater to a bustling suburb. The growth of the county placed enormous economic pressures on both white and black families that had originally lived in the county. The development boom brought rising land values, increasing property taxes, and a county hell-bent on growing. Many families had the option, and many exercised it, of selling out and moving on. However, blacks had the significant barrier of being excluded from much of the new housing stock whether through formal covenants or more informal methods. During this boom, the black population grew a tiny amount, but rapidly shrank as a percentage of the overall population. In 1960, blacks in the DC suburbs occupied 24% of deteriorating housing, 54% of dilapidated housing, and only 3% of sound housing. During the early seventies Fairfax built its first public housing, which had the effect of institutionally segregating them and enticing poor blacks off of valuable land. The two public housing developments, Herndon Gardens and Dulles Park which were both located in Herndon.

Herndon at one time was a sleepy railroad town, but it had boomed along with the rest of the county and had doubled in size in a few years. Mayor Lopp and Town Manager Noe handled the tense situation very badly. Noe admitted he had paid no attention to the concerns of black residents while Lopp declared they made up an insignificant portion of the town’s population. Lopp went on the blame the county for concentrating low-income residents in his town. Following the riot, a meeting was called with black residents to air concerns and seek solutions. Problems rattled off were a 10 pm street curfew, which was usually invoked only with black residents, lack of adequate shopping, recreation, and transportation. One leader summed it up as “if you don’t have a car, you’re lost.” Another resident said he had been stopped 35 times for “routine checks” by police since he had bought his ’53 panel truck two months earlier. However, the meeting did not go well as Mayor Lopp walked out after demanding that people stop shouting. Finally county leaders met with the residents and formed an ad hoc committee to find resolutions to the problems. The Citizens Committee of Fairfax County began meeting with police representatives and a federal mediator to come to an agreement. The Committee demanded increased minority hiring, training for police, and establishment of more citizen oversight. The county agreed to fill 18 vacancies with minority members and raise the minority representation on the force to 28.2%, which was the metro DC ratio.

The county continues to grapple with these problems today as housing it of reach to many, the police force continues to battle charges of excessive force, and Herndon is still a flash point for racial tensions, but now it is aimed at Latino immigrants. As for John Mueller, he served as a police officer until retiring in 1994 as a bomb technician. He was in the coast guard reserves and helped rescue people from the Air Florida crash. He died in Vienna in 2001.