Prospect Hill in

Arlington County, Virginia Arlington County is a County (United States), county in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the Washington, D.C., District of Co ...

is the former location of a

Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...

mansion built in 1841 by successful contractor James Roach in Arlington County (then named Alexandria County). The house was built on Arlington Ridge Road. In 1861, the land was seized and vandalized by

Union soldiers During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

during the construction of

Fort Runyon Fort Runyon was a timber and earthwork fort constructed by the Union Army following the occupation of northern Virginia in the American Civil War in order to defend the southern approaches to the Long Bridge as part of the defenses of Washington ...

and Fort Albany. The house was demolished in 1965, but an historic marker has been placed at the site. Roach had also supplied most of the materials for the Alexandria Canal, the Aqueduct Bridge, and the

Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad (colloquially referred to as the W&OD) was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia, United States. The railroad was a successor to the bankrupt Washington and Old Dominion Railway ...

. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, Prospect Hill became a popular spot for photographs to take photos of

The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

after it was crashed into by

American Airlines Flight 77 American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled American Airlines domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. The Boe ...

. The site is also home to the 0.4 acre Prospect Hill Park.

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