Tinner Hill is an historic area of Falls Church, Virginia, named after Charles and Mary Tinner, an African-American couple who bought land there in the late 19th century. Family members quarried stone used in many buildings nearby. [1] Between 1910 and 1918, their descendant Joseph Tinner and Edwin Bancroft Henderson fought for civil rights and helped found the first rural branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. [2]
The Colored Citizens Protective League (CCPL) was established at Tinner's house in 1915. In 1918, the NAACP granted the CCPL a charter that allowed it to form the Falls Church and Vicinity NAACP. The first rural branch had about 40 members and eight officers, including Tinner as the first president, and Henderson as secretary. In 1944, the NAACP issued the branch a new charter as the "Fairfax County Branch." [3] [4]
Tinner Hill has two memorial sites. A park with explanatory signage, a picnic area, and a memorial river sculpture adjoins the former Tinner residence. There is also a stone arch at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Tinner Hill Road. The arch was erected by the Tinner Hill Heritage Foundation in 1999, with additional signage honoring Joseph Tinner and E.B. Henderson. The fifteen-foot monument of pink granite (trondhjemite) also honors the men and women of Tinner Hill and the NAACP's first rural branch. One of the plaques nearby is missing since the luxury apartments were built behind it. The City Council of Falls Church has drawn criticism for allowing high-density apartment buildings for affluent residents to overshadow the Tinner Hill monument. [5]
The stone used in the arch was retrieved from demolished buildings built with granite that Tinner quarried, cut, and shaped in Falls Church before 1922. The monument also pays homage to Joseph Tinner's greatest stonework, a large stand-alone arch that once stood about two miles away at Seven Corners. That arch was demolished decades ago during construction of a car dealership. Local high school art teacher John Ballou drew the concept design with the assistance of architect Mark Coupard and Structural Engineer Guy Razzi. The monument was designed so that it can not be disassembled without destruction; the rock is now irreplaceable, as all remaining local trondhjemite is too friable to use in a stand-alone arch. The masonry for the monument was crafted by Roy Morgan of Washington, D.C., and James Ware of Virginia. [6]
Piedmont Blues guitarist/singer John Jackson headlined the original dedication ceremony. A 30-minute film, "The Making of a Monument" by Dave Eckert, shows how the arch was made. Another short film, "Tinner Hill" by Bob Burnett, provides a more in-depth story about the history and people of Tinner Hill.
Since 1993, the annual Tinner Blues Festival has taken place on the second Saturday of June several blocks away in Cherry Hill Park in what is now the City of Falls Church. Many national and area blues musicians play at the event, which also honors Jackson's memory.
Falls Church is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Washington metropolitan area.
West Falls Church is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population was 29,207 at the 2010 census. Before 2010, West Falls Church was officially named Jefferson. Outside of the Jefferson Village neighborhood, "Jefferson" generally is not used locally to refer to the area bounding Falls Church city to the south and southwest that comprises the CDP. Likewise, "West Falls Church" is rarely used to describe the area but is usually applied to areas west of Falls Church city or near West Falls Church Metro station. The bulk of it is made of subdivisions built in the 1940s and early 1950s, including Jefferson Village, Westlawn, Hillwood, Sleepy Hollow, Woodley, Raymondale and Broyhill Park.
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A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often made of very hard and solid igneous or metamorphic rock. Some monoliths are volcanic plugs, solidified lava filling the vent of an extinct volcano.
Stone Mountain is a quartz monzonite dome monadnock and the site of Stone Mountain Park, 16 miles (26 km) east of Atlanta, Georgia. Outside the park is the small city of Stone Mountain, Georgia. The park is the most visited tourist site in the state of Georgia.
Guilford is an unincorporated community located in Howard County in the state of Maryland. The location is named after the Guilford Mill. Guilford is near Kings Contrivance, one of the nine "villages" of Columbia.
Hokie Stone is a grey dolomite—limestone rock found near Blacksburg, in western Virginia. It gets its name from the traditional nickname attributed to students and alumni of Virginia Tech.
Solomon Willard was a carver and builder in Massachusetts who is remembered primarily for designing and overseeing the Bunker Hill Monument, the first monumental obelisk erected in the United States.
The Granite Railway was one of the first railroads in the United States, built to carry granite from Quincy, Massachusetts, to a dock on the Neponset River in Milton. From there boats carried the heavy stone to Charlestown for construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. The Granite Railway is popularly termed the first commercial railroad in the United States, as it was the first chartered railway to evolve into a common carrier without an intervening closure. The last active quarry closed in 1963; in 1985, the Metropolitan District Commission purchased 22 acres (8.9 ha), including Granite Railway Quarry, as the Quincy Quarries Reservation.
Luxulyan, also spelt Luxullian or Luxulian, is a village and civil parish in mid Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village lies four miles (6.5 km) northeast of St Austell and six miles (10 km) south of Bodmin. The population of the parish was 1,371 in the 2001 census. This had risen to 1,381 at the 2011 census.
Cha Kwo Ling is a hill in the eastern New Kowloon area of Hong Kong, and the area around it. It is adjacent to Victoria Harbour and located to the west of Yau Tong and southwest of Lam Tin. Administratively, it belongs to the Kwun Tong District. The northeastern entrance to the Eastern Harbour Crossing is located in this area.
Edwin Bancroft Henderson, was an American educator and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pioneer. The "Father of Black Basketball", introduced basketball to African Americans in Washington, D.C., in 1904, and was Washington's first male African American physical education teacher. From 1926 until his retirement in 1954, Henderson served as director of health and physical education for Washington, D.C.'s black schools. An athlete and team player rather than a star, Henderson both taught physical education to African Americans and organized athletic activities in Washington, D.C., and Fairfax County, Virginia, where his grandmother lived and where he returned with his wife in 1910 to raise their family. A prolific letter writer both to newspapers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and Alabama, Henderson also helped organize the Fairfax County branch of the NAACP and twice served as President of the Virginia NAACP in the 1950s.
St Agnes is a civil parish and a large village on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is about five miles (8 km) north of Redruth and ten miles (16 km) southwest of Newquay. An electoral ward exists stretching as far south as Blackwater. The population at the 2011 census was 7,565.
Granite was an unincorporated community in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It was originally located along the Richmond and Danville Railroad five miles west of Manchester and about a mile south of the rapids of the James River along Powhite Creek. Most of the Granite area of Chesterfield County was annexed by the independent city of Richmond on January 1, 1970.
The Rye African-American Cemetery, also known as the African Cemetery in Rye, is a historic 1.4 acre cemetery on North Street in Rye, New York. It was established as a burying ground for local African-Americans in 1860 through a donation of land by the Underhill family with the intent that it “shall forever hereafter kept, held and used for the purpose of a cemetery or burial place for the colored inhabitants of the said Town of Rye, and its vicinity free and clear of any charge". At least 35 of the individuals buried there are American veterans including men who served with the 20th United States Colored Infantry Regiment. The last documented burial in the cemetery was in 1964.
Mary Ellen Henderson was an African-American educator and civil rights activist in the mid-1900s. She is most famous for her work desegregating living spaces in Falls Church, working to build better facilities for black students in Falls Church, Virginia and starting the CCPL, the first rural branch of the NAACP.
The Colored Citizens Protective League (CCPL) was established in Falls Church, Virginia in 1915 to advocate against proposed town ordinances to restrict areas where African Americans could live. It went on to become the first rural NAACP branch.