CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Gar-Field Senior High School

high school in Virginia, United States

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ5521805
Source-derived summary

Gar-Field Senior High School is a senior high school in Woodbridge in Prince William County, Virginia, United States, educating students in grades 9 to 12.

History and administration

Gar-Field High School was opened on December 8, 1953, as a successor school to Occoquan District High School. The name Gar-Field is derived from two prominent local families, the Garbers and the Manderfields. According to Prince William County Circuit Court records, the Garbers and Manderfields donated approximately 20 acres of land for the original school near Neabsco Creek that had once been part of “Round Top Farm”, just off of U.S. Highway #1. The gift to Prince William County’s School Board stipulated that this land would be used for building a public school for white children. The school was later integrated by an African-American student named Joyce Russell Taylor in 1961. Russell Taylor's name was suggested when Prince William County Schools was choosing a new name for Stonewall Jackson (now Unity Reed High School) and when the district was choosing a name for their 13th High School (now Gainesville High School). Gar-Field was originally located at 15941 Cardinal Drive until the current school opened in 1972 on 14000 Smoketown Road.

Mascot name change

Since the creation of its predecessor, Occoquan District High School in 1927, Gar-Field's mascot was originally the Indians. However, in March 2021, at the request of student leaders, the school announced the name of the school's mascot would change.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Gar-Field Senior High School” is high school in Virginia, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Gar-Field, Senior and High, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1953, 1961, 1972, 1927—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1951. For this dossier, Gar-Field, Senior and High is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “high school in Virginia, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5521805. VIAF identifies the subject as 151622763. The Library of Congress control number is no2004098613. Authority coordinates are 38.646, -77.305. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1961, 1972 and 1927.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gar-Field Senior High School”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gar-Field Senior High School primary sources, Gar-Field Senior High School archive and Gar-Field research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gar-Field Senior High School”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Gar-Field Senior High School” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.