Post Production: The strange fuel of Reston

Bonus notes on the town’s secret first residents, its racial integration and where Big Oil flopped

Hickory Cluster, Reston’s most contemporary early neighborhood. (Charles M. Goodman Architectural Archive, via Library of Congress)

Post Production columns dish on how the Machine’s most deeply reported stories came together and share anecdotes, insights and tidbits that didn’t make the final edit.

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Before my wife and I moved to Reston in April, I knew just a little about its history.

I knew that it was a master-planned community. I knew that Robert E. Simon had founded it and that a statue of him sat on a bench in Lake Anne Plaza. And I knew that our new townhouse had all the charm and predictable problems that come from being built in 1965.

But I knew little more than that — and I had heard, and certainly suspected, nothing about Gulf and Mobil taking over the town.

I want The Machine to respect readers’ time, so, as always, I had to cut some insightful and colorful details that I uncovered for this month’s story. Below the paywall are four bonus anecdotes and notes that stayed with me after publishing.