Herndon, Virginia

Herndon is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia, it is part of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In 2020, the population at the census was 24,655, which makes it the largest of three incorporated towns in the county.

History

The early settlement was named Herndon in 1858, after Commander William Lewis Herndon, an American naval explorer and author of Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. Commander Herndon captained the ill-fated steamer SS Central America, going down with his ship while helping to save over 150 of its passengers and crew. In the 1870s, many Northern soldiers and their families came to settle in the area, taking advantage of moderate climate and low land prices.

Originally part of the rural surroundings of the Washington, D.C. area, the town of Herndon developed into a hub of dairy farming and vacationing for area residents, aided by its presence along the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, later renamed the Washington and Old Dominion (W&OD) Railroad. When the railroad was converted into a hike-and-bike trail, Herndon capitalized on history and small-town feel (in a major metropolitan region) by converting its train station into a museum and visitors center and by relocating a Norfolk Southern Railway caboose to a nearby site and repainting it in W&OD livery.

The caboose was originally acquired in 1989 by Herndon Historical Society member, George Moore, to whose memory the caboose was dedicated after his death in 2003. Although the caboose itself never traveled through Herndon, it remains an iconic part of the downtown area that both locals and tourists visit daily.