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HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: laura discord ()
Date: June 05, 2007 10:53PM

i realize i already posted this in general, but what the hell ...



a couple months ago, i was looking for a way to fill my friday night. it was after 1:30 and everyone my age (i'm sixteen) had pretty much turned in.

i have a real love for the obscure.

sure, there's bunnyman bridge, but that just seemed too trite. and then i remembered occaquan, a sleepy little ghost town just this side of I-95. i live in reston. the destination was set. miles and i set out down fairco, got onto ox road, and chased it down to the occaquan exit. occaquan has this great rickety wooden bridge across a big river, and everything closes by 9pm. the place was deserted. miles and i enjoyed some time being the only living souls for ten miles, and after substantially freaking ourselves out with talk of axe-murderers and the like, we decided we'd had our fun.

it was on our journey home that we noticed the real treasure: the closed lorton penitentiary. we'd heard of it but never realized it actually existed, you know? and we wanted it! now, we aren't stupid. we knew we weren't gonna be able to get inside. but we wanted to case the grounds, stalk the perimeter, whatever we could get. we got more than we bargained for.

we turned down a little street that looked like it would take us closer, which i believe may have been HOOES ROAD (no joke.) we cruised around for awhile, and then we saw it: this charming, tiny little road snaking through the woods; a sharp jerk to the left and we were on it. we sailed pat a sign that said "road closed -- federal property." we hedged our bets that no one would care.

all of a sudden, the road in front of us is blocked. though it continues as far as we can see, when it hits a cross-road (furnace road) the next stretch is blocked by a big, intimidating red gate. "federal property -- no trespassing" signs cover the area. we are staring at this house, terrified, because there is just something WRONG with it. it is inside a fence, wrapped in barbed wire, and ominous. it is situated up on a small hill, set on a pretty good-sized lawn. i then realize one thing that's terribly strange:

there is a big, industrial streetlight, like the kind you see on highways, in the front lawn of this house. facing the front door. and it is off.

miles and i get out of his car. we get closer to the house, dipping under the first of the trespassing warnings. we hear the house literally groaning and shaking faintly. we would get closer, but we are way too freaked out by the idea of getting caught trespassing.

we end up driving around up and down furnace road for a little bit, and we find something else very queer. fifty or sixty feet down the road, there is a circle of these strange streetlights, each marked with trespassing signs. inside the circle, there is a cracked and broken sidewalk. there are smaller bits coming off the larger bits of the pavement under our feet. we realize in horror that this was a neighborhood. that's what the sidewalk was shaped like. we walk around, daring not traverse the thin line between flirting with and actually venturing into the forbidden woods.

several other peculiarities:
- i checked out the cached google satelite picture of this area, and none of the fences or signs blocking these places off appear in the pictures. these became federal property within the last year. also, several structures appear which are definitely no longer there.
- the road which connected us to furnace road the first time has two other abandoned, federal property houses. we got out and walked around outside them; there are cups and saucers and silverwear littered outside them. they are recently built but totally dilapidated. they are somewhat furnished on the inside -- we shone our flashlights in and caught FIVE OR SIX mirrors in each one. weird, huh?
- there is no mention of this property on the internet. it is not included in the map of the penitentiary grounds.
- on that weird little road we take to get to the house, there is is ALWAYS at least one animal carcass in the road, usually a deer, its body split open like it's been hit. yet there is no shattered glass, no indication that it collided with a car ... what else could possibly do that to an animal? very strange and very disturbing. the rotting corpses stay until the maggots devour them all; no crews clean them up. bones adorn the roadside endlessly.

miles and i have returned to this area fairly religiously, enamoured with our own mystery. strangest thing is, no one we've talked to who lives around there has ANY idea whats going on.

do any of you have anything even remotely related?



pictures:
(i suppose html img tags don't work in these forums ... lame)

google satelite image of the house - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/thehouse.jpg
google satelite image of the other two houses - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/twomorehouses.jpg
picture i took of the house - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/thathouse.jpg
and the streetlight - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/thecircle.jpg
and the gate - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/noway.jpg
and a close up of the house - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/fuckinghaunted.jpg


thanks for any help you can provide.

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: bdimag ()
Date: June 19, 2007 10:01AM

I think i died there once..

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: Hispanic! ()
Date: July 10, 2007 02:26AM

Should've made it into a Bel Air.

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: bdimag ()
Date: July 13, 2007 04:08PM

or a zoo... lorton needs a zoo

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: CaneCorsoLover ()
Date: September 30, 2007 10:34PM

Wow that house sure is spooky looking. Maybe the lights were there in case an inmate escaped for extra security for the homes occupants. Everytime I drive past that old prison - I get shivers up my spine - imagine all the misery that is still hanging in the air. I would never buy a house around there and I noticed they have some pretty nice new homes nearby..

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: Lorton guy ()
Date: November 29, 2007 10:06AM

What you were seeing was the old NIKE missle area. Back during the cold war, NIKE anti-aircraft missles were housed there to protect Washington DC. Back then Lorton was just a prision area. The area is still owned by the federal government but missles are no longer stored there.

Google NIKE lortion and you'll get more info.

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: o god ()
Date: June 11, 2008 05:00PM

the lorton prison is now owned by a privite co. they are turning it into a artsy fartsy thing. yes at one time it did have NIKe missile there anad yes they are gone. what made that prison famous is that back in the 20s 30s or 40s cant remember it held the woman suffrage and the toen drunks it later became the dc prison. just go there on a day they have a open house or google lorton workhouse. it is privite owned and part is park ath.

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: who ()
Date: July 15, 2008 04:04AM

check out the abandoned house behind occoquan regional park just down the road. You can see it during the day by entering the park and taking the 2nd left (after driving down the windy road for awhile) and crossing a dirt parking lot. looks fine during the day but park workers always say a light turns on and off during the night. curious?

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: aabro ()
Date: July 25, 2008 04:17PM

i live like 2 miles from that house. in the woods behind it is where the gang murder/execution took place last year that you may have heard about on the news.

http://flickr.com/photos/24294520@N02/2305338824/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/24294520@N02/2304541971/

those are pictures of the house. other pictures on my flickr are of the prison area around it

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: WuddupDude ()
Date: September 11, 2009 09:55PM

See the post on "Missile Silo" and dont get arrested driving on those roads for "Trespassing on Federal Property"...

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: 'spooky' circle of lights ()
Date: January 13, 2010 05:42PM

The 'spooky' circle of lights was a couple of trailers that were the classrooms for the Training facility for the prison. They were sold and removed. The lights are still there so that the guards hired to patrol the area have a place to park.

There is nothing spooky about this neighborhood except the idea that The Art Center would be an improvement for the area. During the Civil War the Occoquan was the delineating line between the North and the South. There was one minor skermish were several soldiers were killed (8 I think).

There have been many escapes from the minimum security area across from the Nike site but mostly because the prisoners were from Washington D.C. and they were sometimes allowed to go outside the facility to mow the lawn. Most of the prisoners just had family drive up and leave a car and they would go out and get in the car and take off. One time an inmate took of to the Occoquan and ended up in the rock quarry. He came out two days later missing one shoe. Another time a guy fled towards Burke and went into someones garage and fell asleep in there minivan. The homeowner went out to the car and saw the inmate and called the police and he was arrested.

There was never an escape from the Maximum security facility which you can see if you go North on Hooes Road and turn right on Silverbrook past the highschool.

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: T-TimE ()
Date: January 27, 2010 10:23PM

i broke into the prison several times and explored that abandoned house right outside it. we heard some weird things, it was quiet and we heard strange tapping while we were in the living room of the house, that freaked us out. While in the prison it didnt seem like any one else had been there recently, we went up to the watch tower by the baseball field, there was fresh blood on the floor, and an IV tube with blood in it. Cant really explain that one. It looks like a little town in there, with the brick roads and such. Anyways that place is awesome to explore and easy to get into lol it's a little more risky these days since i'm pretty sure im not the only one thats been in it. Lotta fun though lol

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: Birdi ()
Date: February 23, 2010 08:07PM

The thing I remember most about the Lorton prison is the siren. They tested it regularly and I could hear it from where I lived...not far as the crow flies. I was in my teens, I guess, but I always remember all telling us to get in the house when you hear it. Someone escaped. Its really kinda creepy looking now. Glad I stumbled in here.

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: lorton resident ()
Date: February 03, 2011 03:08PM

That house was built for Major William Lindsay. It is called the laurel hill house.
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/laurelhill/laurel_hill_house.htm

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: money roe ()
Date: November 29, 2011 06:18PM

how would he explain this posting time?

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Re: HOUSES BY THE PENITENTIARY
Posted by: sunnah ()
Date: July 08, 2019 12:40AM

Nice pictures of the buildings on the penitentiary grounds. Much of them are gone now.I was riding my bike there last year and a few are still standing. It seems all of the doors are locked/closed. Just a bunch of random trash. The original posting about the house. It does have a historical reference so it probably will not be torn down. The parking lot is used regularly by bikers as that is accessible to entrances of multiple trails.

I think there is a small NIKE site pad located in near the golf course but the main one was much larger and located near Burke Lake Rd and FFX Co. Parkway. There is a historical lad marker explaining.. Funny thing is that I always lose cell reception around that area for about half of a mile stretch.

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