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Who in the World Was Zulla
Who in the World Was Zulla
By John E. Ross
At least half a dozen time a week, I drive Zulla Road from Middleburg to Marshall and back. That name has intrigued me for decades. Surely Zulla must have been a place, a road named for where it went.
While doing research for a new book, I stumbled on a map of Fauquier County commissioned by the county’s Board of Trade in 1914. About four miles south on what was then the Middleburg-Salem Road from Mt. Defiance on Ashby’s Gap Turnpike is a crossroads labeled ZULLA at today’s intersection of Lambdon Rd. and Smitten Farm Lane.
On the map at the northwest corner of the crossroads is a tiny square black box with a pennant flying from its top, the symbol for a school. Beneath are the words Zulla School followed by (w), denoting that this school was for White children.
Curiosity got the better of me. I had to know more. At Fauquier Library in Warrenton, I was directed to the reference section and handed a copy of Gene Scheel’s book, “The History of Middleburg and Vicinity: Honoring the 200th Anniversary of the Town 1787 – 1987.”
According to Scheel, Cotland Post Office was opened in 1880 at the crossroads and operated by John W. and later Clarence Middleton. Perhaps the Middletons were good Democrats. When president Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, lost re-election to Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1889, Cotland Post Office was closed.
However, about the same time, a neighboring landowner, George B. Zulla, began constructing a store. Before it opened, he died of pneumonia. Clarence Middleton suggested that the new store be named for Zulla and under that name, postal service was resumed.
At first, the postmaster was Tennessee Smith, who also operated the store. The post office closed in 1904 and residents of the area received their mail via The Plains. The store continued operating into the late 1940s.
By then the road passing Zulla store cut through the heart of horse country. Scheel reported that “Zulla Rd. to N & South known as the Jericho Tpke or Long Island Expressway for many Yankees who built Late Gatsby homes along rd in the 20’s and 30’s; well-landscaped and set back from rd, often lined w. stone & split-rail fences….”
Called in those days as “The Sand ‘n’ Clay” road, post World War II prosperity brought the likelihood that Zulla Rd. would soon wear asphalt pavement. As the issue was being considered in 1951, controversy erupted in the April 12 meeting of Fauquier County’s Board of Supervisors.
In his column in the Fauquier Democrat, William H. Gaines reported being “surprised at the amount of time allotted to the gentlemen who live on or near Rt. 709, or the Zulla Rd. These gentlemen want to have their cake and eat it too. They want a road in that neighborhood that will stand up for traffic yet won’t be hard surfaced and “slippery” as one gentleman expressed.
“This same gentleman in the course of his remarks, made the voluntary statement that he was not even a resident of this State which we had already gathered – he did not talk like a Virginian. In the meantime, while these various and sundry gentlemen addressed the Supervisors, sixteen families, all of whom had taken off from work, to mildly ask for resurfacing a piece of road of less than one-half mile, sat twiddling their thumbs.
“Finally, they ran out of wind and oratory and the sixteen working families had their “innings” and we hope that they get their little piece of road in front of their homes fixed so that they won’t be either in mud or dust as the weather dictates.”
In his June 21 column, Gaines wrote that the Supervisors met in “secret session” at the office of the resident VDOT highway engineer in Richmond “to discuss road matters.” Supervisors’ chairman Tom Frost described the meeting as an “executive” session.
At the meeting, Supervisors adopted a resolution to “black-top” the road from its intersection with Rt. 55 at Brooks Corner to U.S. 50 near Mt. Defiance. Zulla Road was paved in 1952 and as Scheel put it, “The Sand ‘n’ Clay road was no more….”
Scant trace of Zulla’s store, post office, and school can be seen today. At the northeast corner of the intersection along Lambdon Rd., Forrest B. Mars built four concrete block houses for his farm workers. A similar house on the northwest corner occupies the school’s site. Apparently the store was located in the field on the southeast corner now being fenced with stone.
