The Bailey's Crossroads Campus
At the corner of Leesburg Pike (VA Route 7) and Columbia Pike (VA Route 244) once stood an eight-room schoolhouse, Bailey's Elementary School. The school was built in 1922 and served elementary school students until 1954, when a new Bailey's Elementary was built three-quarters of a mile further north on Leesburg Pike. University College (later named George Mason) moved into the tiny schoolhouse in the fall of 1957. Fifty yards to the east, was Bailey's Crossroads Fire Department.
The firehouse lent its upstairs Bingo hall to the college as a lounge, since there was no remaining space in school building. Today, neither of these buildings are are standing, an in their place, is a laundromat.
The Bailey's Crossroads Volunteer Fire Department Hall and Other Hangouts
Student Life at the Bailey's Crossroads Campus
Because the Bailey's Crossroads school building was so small, students used the neighboring firehouse meeting hall as their student lounge from 1959 to 1964. They also enjoyed patronizing neighborhood businesses. Campus life at Bailey's centered around these locations.
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The Bailey's Crossroads Campus
George Mason University's Humble Beginnings
After being approved for operation by the Virginia General Legislature in 1956, the institution that became George Mason University began in an old elementary school building at the intersection of Columbia and Leesburg Pikes in the Bailey's Crossroads section of eastern Fairfax County in the fall of 1957.
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