A cluttered treasure trove of history has taken over two rooms in the Fairfax County police headquarters. Old uniforms, firearms and even the tail section of one of the department’s old helicopters that took part in a 9/11 mission lay in wait of their new home not much farther away within the building.
It’s going to take them much of the rest of the year, but a group of retired county police officers are working tirelessly to construct a new, in-house museum dedicated to the department’s past.
“There is still much to do, as we literally have thousands upon thousands of slides that we have not gone through …” retired 2nd Lt. Dan Courtney said. But give them several more months and they should have the displays up and running for scheduled public views, he said. The museum will be open full-time for walk-throughs once the sheriff’s office moves into its new building in a couple of years,
The project began almost eight years ago with a book. Courtney, a 27-year veteran of the department, and a core group of history buffs combed the community for old stories and photographs. No one had kept an organized record of the department’s history, and they wanted to be the first.
The men — retired Lt. Lee Hubbard, resident Dan Cronin and Capts. Paul Puff and Eddie Wingo (now deceased) — spoke with retired officers and families of officers dating back to the 1940s. Courtney himself spent hours each day in the county library digging up old news articles.
“There was enough in the way of materials that we thought some of this ought to be displayed,” he said. Since 2004 they’ve collected every Fairfax police patch, the building plate from the department’s first headquarters and more than 100,000 photographs, among other artifacts. Though it’s completely a volunteer effort, the group has logged 40- and even 60-hour weeks at times.
The proceeds from sales of the book — a 219-page chronicle beginning with the county’s first chief in 1921 — will go toward constructing and maintaining the museum.
“The absolute best moment for me was meeting so many of the retired officers and retired officers’ families that had given so much and provided so much to direction of agency to push it forward,” Courtney said.
