Abandoned Frontier Town

By Bill Riski, MPOA History Committee

Your history committee is hard at work gathering information about Montclair in preparation for publishing a book next year – in honor of our 40th Anniversary. We’d love to hear from you too, especially if you lived here in the 1970’s. I recently spent many hours looking through back editions of The Potomac News and The Washington Post. You may have heard that 2009 is considered our 40th Anniversary, but what a turbulent start we had! And while 1969 is indeed the anniversary of our property owners association, the rest of the story is pretty fascinating.

• 1964 Lake Montclair Dam was constructed on Powells Creek; the lake was first filled in July 1965.
• 1965 Lake Montclair Associates gets permission from PWC Board of Commissioners to proceed with plans for an 1100-acre development, including high-rise apartments!

My wife and I visited the new Wegman's during their grand opening today. We waited until after 7 PM and it was a lot less of a zoo than I thought it might be. Prince William County police were there to direct traffic and the parking was well marked and people were leaving just as we arrived. The frequent shopper card process was show me your drivers license and give me your phone number wham, bam. The store was very busy but every checkout stand was open and we only had one person in front of us and it turned out to be somebody we had not seen in a couple of years. Of course the free butter and free soda coupon helped but they had several sale items cheaper than local stores including the commissary! We will probably try to arrange to visit once a week and use or "free" coupons and buy some specials as long as we happen to be running errands nearby.