As Ryan Spoerl heads over the railroad tracks on Burke Lake Road, he looks at that bridge as a turning point for Burke. Before there was a bridge, he remembers an at-grade crossing with a striped, wooden gate that came down when trains rolled through like it was Mayberry RFD itself.
"That was the one element when it seemed like things were growing. There was a wooden 7-11, like a log cabin 7-11," he said.
For the Burke native, who went through all 13 years of school in the same house on Lake Braddock, Burke is still home.
"We lived on the lake," Spoerl said. "When my dad first bought that house, Lake Braddock [school] was still a forest and Burke was a small town."
He attended Holy Spirit Catholic School from kindergarten through eighth grade, Paul VI for grades nine and 10, and Lake Braddock Secondary for 11 and 12 grades. His mother passed away when he was in elementary school. When Spoerl was 19, his father sold the house and moved to Alabama. He's moved several times since then, but within Burke.
"It feels like a small town, if I didn't work outside Burke then I would never have to leave," he said.
Maureen Kelly remembers a simpler time around Burke as well. She moved into North Springfield in 1956 and has been one of the religious educators at the St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fairfax Station since 1969.
"When we moved in, my house was the last house on the street. I thought we were moving into the wilderness," she said, but saw the beginning of a trend. "It seemed like everybody was moving out this way at the time."
Kelly has raised three children in the area, who all attended Annandale High School. At St. Mary's, she's learned a lot about the Civil War era church as well.
"This bell is really old, 1858 I think," she said.
To Jo Ellen Osiecki, Burke looked like the perfect place to raise a family back in 1990 and she's been there ever since. Burke Centre, the planned community with five pools and tennis courts, and a good proximity to Washington D.C. was ideal.
"We liked the planned community in Burke Centre," Osiecki said. "We love the fact that the kids walk to school."
Osiecki's two children go to Terra Centre Elementary School, which was an open-classroom school and has since been modified to close up the classes. Osiecki is involved with the school's welcome committee and a "mom's group" as she called it. She also likes the fact that nearby are stores, medical facilities, parks and children-oriented activities. Both of her boys are in scouts as well.
"We're very happy here," she said. "I don't see us leaving Burke."