Woodbridge

Woodbridge was initially a village composed of plantations, and later farms and industrial complexes. Formally dating to at least 1731 when Prince William County was formed out of Stafford County, Virginia. Initially the first Prince William County Courthouse was erected in Woodbridge—halfway between Dumfries and Alexandria Virginia—the two largest cities at the time which were in Prince William County. Woodbridge area takes its name from Thomas Mason’s 1795 wooden toll bridge built to replace the existing ferry, carrying the King’s Highway traffic across the Occoquan River. Thomas Mason’s Woodbridge Plantation was in the area of the present-day Belmont Bay golf course community. The Freestone Point Confederate Battery and Rippon Lodge are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Later, the area became the hub that included Dale City and Lake Ridge, which were previously forged as planned communities in the 1960s and 1970s. The town experienced its current development boom in the mid-1980s.