Explore a Park: Lillian Carey Park

This is the second piece in our series on parks in the Annandale/Mason District area. The first one was about Manassas Gap Park.

Lillian Carey Park is a 13-acre, wooded park at 5921 Summers Lane, in Bailey’s Crossroads. It is adjacent to Holmes Run Park.

Features – Tennis/pickleball courts, a picnic shelter, and a playground.

Access – The best way to get to Lillian Carey Park is from the parking lot at the Bailey’s Community Center. It can also be reached by climbing the stairs at the rear of the Steppes of Barcroft townhouse community or from the trail in Holmes Run Park.

History – The park is on the site of Lillian Carey Elementary School, which was built around 1956 and was one of seven all African-American schools in Fairfax County before the schools were forced to desegregate. When Bailey’s Elementary School opened on Knollwood Drive in 1952, only White children were allowed to attend.

Lillian Carey Elementary replaced a two-room schoolhouse on Lacy Boulevard, known as the Bailey’s School.

Lillian Hopkins Carey (1867-1935) was an African American educator and Bailey’s Crossroads community pioneer who was the first teacher, and later principal, of the Bailey’s School which was built in the early 1920s on land owned by her parents.

After the Bailey’s School was closed in the 1940s, members of the community urged the county to establish another school in Bailey’s Crossroads for Black children. It took years, but finally, a new brick school building opened and was named for Lillian Carey.

The Lillian Carey Annex to the Bailey’s Community Center is behind the picnic shelter.

While the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated schools were unconstitutional, Fairfax County didn’t integrate its schools until 1963. Lillian Carey Elementary School was shuttered in 1965. Most students were transferred to Bailey’s, Glen Forest, Lincolnia, and Parklawn elementary schools.

The former elementary school was incorporated into the Bailey’s Community Center, which opened in 1978. Known as the Lillian Carey Annex, the building houses the Higher Horizons Day Care Center.