For Fairfax County author Karen Washburn, Northern Virginia’s history is more than a record of famous events: It’s a story of how ordinary people lived and how the value of land changed over time.
Rather than focusing mainly on famous figures or battles, Washburn, a historian and real estate agent, said she wanted to understand “how the common man handled those big events” in the economy and recovered.
In her 2025 book, “Supply and Demand: The Development of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, 1649–1960,” Washburn traces three centuries of market booms and busts, land development and changing social conditions.
“The good news is that while the economy falls, it always recovers,” she said.
Washburn’s book follows the region’s transformation from a sparsely populated, heavily forested landscape to today’s high-rises, transit stations and suburban neighborhoods. It tells the region’s history through land, economic change and the everyday lives of the people affected.
She noted the book is not a scholarly work. She wrote it as an easy-to-read narrative, complete with illustrations in every chapter, to entertain and educate general readers.
Washburn served on the Fairfax County History Commission as the historic sites representative and also represented the Dranesville District and Great Falls area. She eventually served as chair of the commission during her nine-year tenure. Washburn also wrote about local history for Élan Magazine for 10 years.
Uncovering the Untold Story
To bring this history to life, Washburn went beyond traditional official records. She drew on a treasure trove of oral history interviews, capturing personal memories from local residents. Her research also led her deep into the Fairfax County court archives. There, Washburn gained firsthand access to fragile, centuries-old documents — often untying the red tape binding chancery suit files that had sat unopened for 100 or 200 years.
Washburn’s interest in everyday life shows in her accounts of land ownership and value.
“We started with absentee ownership, collecting lots of land in hopes of turning it into money,” she said. But the land did not initially produce the hoped-for wealth, at least for original buyers.
“That’s where the phrase ‘land rich, cash poor’ comes from,” Washburn explained. As the population grew, “the land took on a value, a cash value.”
Asked which economic collapse surprised her most, Washburn pointed to the Panic of 1837, not the Great Depression of the 1930s.
“I don’t think many people know about that,” she said, crediting modern fertilization and farming techniques with helping the region recover.
“Supply and Demand: The Development of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, 1649–1960” by Karen Washburn is available through Mascot Books/Amplify Publishing Group and retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ThriftBooks and AbeBooks.