The Connection

Without John J. Adams and Betty Cooke, Scott's Run Nature Preserve could have been developed into 309 houses.

Without John J. Adams, the 12-mile Georgetown Pike could have been a four-lane, or more, “highway,” not Great Falls’ historic two-lane byway which was officially designated as Virginia’s “first” in 1974.

And without John J. Adams, there might not be a 125-page blueprint that the Virginia Senate adopted in 1974 which governs all aspects of historic preservation of Georgetown Pike; or the 1998 Virginia Senate Resolution requesting the Virginia Department of Transportation to assist in preserving Georgetown Pike.

“We are all beneficiaries of [Adam’s] efforts, which, in collaboration with other community groups, have resulted in securing the designation of Georgetown Pike as a Virginia Scenic and Historical Byway,” said Kathleen Murphy, Great Falls Historical Society President.

Adams “was one of the earliest-concerned citizens instrumental in effectively battling for the protection, and ultimately the acquisition of the 336-acre Scott’s Run as a Nature Preserve,” she said.

The Great Falls Historical Society named John J. Adams the “The Tibbetts Award 2015 Honoree” at a festive celebration at The Old Brogue on May 20, 2015 that included steak, salmon and chicken entrees and calamari and hummus appetizers.

“The quality that strikes me that I’ve learned about John is his unselfish dedication to the community and the better good for all,” said Jack Nutter, who presented Adams his award.

Murphy called Adams “a role model and guide of how to mount a sufficient effort to turn the tide.”

ADAMS WAS ONE of the founders and long-time president of the Georgetown Pike and Potomac River Association that he helped create in 1969.

“Membership grew from an initial 20 people to several hundred to thousands within months,” according to the Great Falls Historical Society. And Adams “led the formation of an articulate opposition to powers-that-be at every level of government who were in support of the development of Scott's Run.”

“John has had an illustrious preservation career,” said member Karen Washburn. “I think this is a very, very long-time, well deserved award, and John, I certainly appreciate everything you have done.

“Including at the end of the day when Betty passed on, it was John’s idea to name the bridge for her and so it was duly done so other generations will remember Betty Cooke, and if they’ve forgotten who she was or never knew, they’ll want to find out because her name is on the bridge.”

“There’s a funny story behind that.”

— John J. Adams, 2015 Tibbetts History Award Honoree

“There’s a funny story behind that,” said Adams.

“Betty for years, she died in 1999, and for years she complained about the clatter,” he said.

“Maybe some of you remember the old bridge that was there had loose boards and she lived right by that clatter. And I would get these frequent calls from her and she’d say, ‘John you have to do something to stop that clatter.’ Well, we finally got the new bridge built.”

COOKE ALERTED the community of the plans to develop the 336-acre Burling Tract in 1968, now Scott's Run Nature Preserve.

“The land had belonged to an attorney named Edward Burling, Sr., who had a secluded cabin at the site. A developer bought the land after Burling’s death in 1966 and proposed 309 cluster homes for the area that would have left about half of the site as preserved, open land,” according to the Fairfax County Park Authority.

“John always acknowledges Betty Cooke as the person who sounded the alarm about the development that was proposed. She alerted him to a small zoning sign that she saw,” said former Great Falls Connection reporter Beverly Bradford, who offered her Top Ten list Wednesday of why Adams had so much impact on Great Falls.

Details of the debates over the land’s future have been documented in Betty Cooke’s book, “The History of Old Georgetown Pike.”

“A citizen movement to stop the development arose, and the conflict of ideas that followed over the next year eventually enveloped county residents, the governor of Virginia and local elected officials, four U. S. senators, conservation and park agencies, the federal government, the New York Times, a national conservation organization, developers, protesting high school students and door-to-door petitioners,” according to the Park Authority website. “Eventually a local public referenda passed as voters decided to tax themselves one-and-a-half million dollars to purchase the land, although negotiations over the price continued. Eventually, the U.S. Department of the Interior provided $3.6 million dollars for purchase of the land, which today belongs to the Fairfax County Park Authority.”

ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, Adams recounted the historical significance of that piece of land and the impact Cooke’s activism had on their continued fight together to preserve the Pike the next three decades.

“The density of two acres has been preserved more than anything else, because of saving that one tract,” said Adams.

Recently, the Pike Association has participated in the planning of Clemyjontri Park in McLean and Turner Farm Equestrian Park and Observatory in Great Falls.

At the awards ceremony, the Society applauded Adams’ five decades of “tireless, passionate and enduring advocacy” to “preserve the integrity and heritage of The Georgetown Pike corridor.”

THREE DOZEN Great Falls and McLean citizens, members of the Great Falls Historical society, past Great Falls journalists and activists joined in honoring him.

The Great Falls Historical Society established the annual Jean Tibbetts History Award in memory of Tibbetts, a former president, historian and author who died in September 2004.

“This award honors outstanding contributors to the research, articulation, dissemination and preservation of the history of life along the Potomac River corridor from McLean, west through Dranesville, and south through Herndon,” according to the Great Falls Historical Society.