Editing Clifton, Virginia (section)

===20th century===
The town was incorporated by the [[Virginia General Assembly|General Assembly]] on March 9, 1902. It is currently one of the three towns in Fairfax County.

During the 1900s, the town was nearly the same size as it is now. The first schoolhouse in Clifton was in Susan Reviere Hetzel's home on Pendleton Avenue. She was also one of the founders of the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]]. The school was later moved to the side-yard area of what would later become the home of Mayors Swem Elgin and Jim Chesley. In 1912 a new schoolhouse (built for K-12) was built overlooking the town; it stood until 1952. A new [[Elementary schools in the United States|elementary school]], Clifton Elementary, was built on the same site in 1953 and served the community until 2010. On March 9, 1930, the Clifton General Store caught fire, and a few months later a new [[general store]] was built in its place.

By the late 1960s, the town was in a state of decline. Many houses in the town were boarded up and abandoned. A number of new families and residents began much-needed [[gentrification]] of the town. Wayne Nickum, a former [[mayor]], worked to ensure the entire town was named to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1985. Some 63 Clifton buildings were added to the register at that time. Another resident, Jim Chesley, who would also serve as mayor of Clifton, worked tirelessly with national and state politicians and administrators to ensure the town maintained its historic integrity. In 1967, the town sponsored the first Clifton Day Festival as a way to attract the public to this historic town. This celebration continues each year as a town fair and music festival on the Sunday before [[Columbus Day]] in October.

One historical home in the town is attributed to a member of the Kincheloe family, located where Main Street, County Rd 645, becomes Kincheloe Road. Kincheloe Road continues to Old Yates Ford Road.<ref>Alexandria Drafting Company, Alexandria, VA. Regional Northern Virginia Map Book, based on 1980 data. Pages 5758, 5874.</ref> Daniel Kincheloe (1723-1785), whose grandfather immigrated from [[Ireland]], was a landowner near the town and along Popes Head Creek. He was a [[captain]] in the [[militia]] in the [[French and Indian Wars]] and provided [[beef]] and other supplies to the revolutionary army during the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]]. He is buried in the Wickliffe/Kincheloe cemetery that is now part of the [[Hemlock Overlook Regional Park]], adjacent to a park office. Among two wives, he had 11 children, including 7 sons.<ref>Kincheloe, John William, <u>This is Where He Walked: A Search for the First Land of the Kincheloe Family in America</u>. 1995.</ref> One of Daniel's descendants built the house in Clifton.

Towards the late 1970s and early 1980s suburban development was starting to edge near Clifton. Communities such as [[Burke Centre, Virginia|Burke Center]], with 5,500 homes, and Little Rocky Run, with 2,722 homes, were constructed, raising concerns that the new construction might ruin the beauty of the Clifton area. In the 1980s, Fairfax County government enacted an ordinance stipulating that only one building could be placed on {{convert|5|acre|m2|adj=on}} parcels that have not already been divided. Single-family homes were constructed in the southern and eastern parts of Clifton, while land to the north became [[equestrianism|equestrian]] areas.

[[Clifton Historic District (Clifton, Virginia)|The town was declared a National Historic District]] by the US Department of the Interior in 1984.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://clifton-va.com/index.php/about-clifton |title=About Clifton |work=clifton-va.com |access-date=October 27, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130315140533/http://clifton-va.com/index.php/about-clifton |archive-date=March 15, 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The opening scenes of ''[[Broadcast News (film)|Broadcast News]]'' were filmed in Clifton in 1986.

Formation of the Occoquan Watershed in the 1970s limited development due to ecological concerns and required all houses in the area to have at least {{convert|5|acre|m2}} of land. This prevents nearly all development other than luxury single-family homes. In 2002, a new community was built on the edge of town called Frog Hill. Controversy arose about demolishing the abandoned Hetzel home on the corner of Chapel Road and Pendleton Avenue in 2006. The building and a replica home were finished in the winter of 2007.