After 27 Years,
Historian Closes
Book on County Job
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By Jason McGahan
January 24, 2002
For a man who has devoted nearly half of his life to
studying and writing about Fairfax County history,
Donald M. Sweig is not the least bit sentimental
about retiring from the county government after 27
years.
Fairfax, he says, "is a good place to live if you've got
a career here, but it's certainly not a relaxing place
to live. Too much clutter."
The county has not always been chaotic. Few people
know that better than Sweig, who has written
extensively about Fairfax from the time Ice Age
Indians lived here to the opening of the Capital
Beltway in 1964, which "helped transform Fairfax
County into the bustling society it is today," as
Sweig himself once wrote.
Sweig joined the county's historical preservation
and research office as an intern in the summer of
1973, when Fairfax's population was about 500,000
and rising fast as large companies began locating
here.
In a recent interview, he delighted in showing a
visitor the bird's-eye photographs of Fairfax in 1950
compared with how it looked in 1980.
"Tysons Corner is bigger than half the cities in this
country!" he exclaimed. "I mean, nobody ever
believed that was possible."
Sweig, who has a weathered face with a ruddy
complexion and bright grayish eyes, was wearing
jeans and an oversize brass belt buckle showing
Virginia's state insignia.
He is a product of the Washington area, having
grown up in Arlington County during the 1950s
before leaving to earn a PhD at the College of
William and Mary. He now lives in the Falls Church
section of Fairfax, near Loehmann's Plaza shopping
center.
But Sweig is more cowboy than academic.
"I'm a woodsy, campy kind of guy," he said, adding
that he intends to pursue a second career in nature
photography.
As county historian, Sweig researched all aspects of
Fairfax's past but specialized in African American
studies. With the Beltway and the county's rise in
population, its residents' often narrow attitudes
toward blacks broadened as the new roads brought
new people.
But even in the affirmative action days of the 1970s
-- one of many changes that grew out of the civil
rights reforms of the 1960s -- Sweig said it was not
unusual for white residents to openly resent a racial
change such as when the first black police officer
joined the force in Fairfax.
Skip forward to November 2001, after years of
Latino, Asian and Middle Eastern immigration to
Fairfax. At sunset on the first day of Ramadan,
Sweig said, he saw a letter carrier drop to his knees
by the roadside and pray to the East.
"That kind of thing would never have happened in
1960s Fairfax County," Sweig said, a look of wonder
on his face.
For the last five years, Sweig has worked at the
James Lee Community Center in the Falls Church
area -- formerly James Lee Elementary School,
which was built in 1948 for black students but
closed in the mid-1960s after desegregation.
Sweig, who said he believes his office was once an
infirmary for children, relocated there after his
position as county historian was eliminated during a
budget squabble in 1996.
But Sweig's work caught on with the county's
archaeological services office, which spared him the
budget ax. He cannot contain his sarcasm at the job
change. "I'm no more an archaeologist than you are
a brain surgeon," he said to a visitor. His position is
slated to be downgraded in both pay and
responsibilities after his retirement.
But his legacy with the county government, recalled
recently at a Board of Supervisors meeting, will
always be as historian. His name is on several
historical publications either as author, contributor
or editor. Sweig wrote roughly one-quarter of the
official county history book: "Fairfax County,
Virginia: A History."
He traced the family names of slaves at Mount
Vernon and published a registry of free blacks in
Fairfax from 1792 to 1860.
He is also well-known as publisher of the "Fairfax
Chronicles," a history, archaeology and preservation
newsletter, from 1977 to 1996. The county still puts
out historical publications under the direction of the
county's volunteer History Commission.
Sweig's office is nearly empty now, save for some
nature posters on the wall, a bust of Thomas
Jefferson on the windowsill and a couple of
retirement cards propped up on his desk. He allows
himself a moment to look back.
"We had a real program going here," Sweig said.
"All of that institutional memory . . . is gone now."
DONALD M. SWEIG
