Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

None

Use Restrictions

Consult repository for information

Preferred Citation

S. Cooper Dawson, Jr. Collection on Penn-Daw Motor Hotel, MSS 06-50, Virginia Room, Fairfax County Public Library

Acquisition Information

Gift of S. Cooper Dawson Jr., June 1986

Processing Information

Chris Barbuschak, May 2018
EAD generated by Ross Landis, 2024

Historical and Biographical Information

Samuel Cooper Dawson Jr. was born to Samuel Cooper Dawson Sr. and Edna Horner Dawson on September 21, 1909 at “Cameron” in Alexandria, Virginia. Dawson was distantly related to George Mason IV. He graduated from Episcopal High School in 1928 and the University of Virginia in 1932.

Dawson Jr. enlisted in the U.S. Navy in March 1942, and served at sea in all theaters of World War II. He married Margaret Frances Boatwright in 1945, and after being discharged with the rank of Commander in May 1946, Dawson Jr. returned to Alexandria to work with his father at the Penn-Daw Hotel.

In 1927, his father, Samuel Cooper Dawson Sr. (1877-1957) partnered with Edward Monroe Pennell (1875-1941) to build a modern highway hotel at the intersection of Route 1 and King’s Highway. They combined the first syllables of their last names and called it the Penn-Daw Hotel. The hotel originally consisted of two buildings and only had eight rooms. The main building existed as a combined gas station, lobby, restaurant, and commissary.

By 1929, the hotel expanded to include brick cabins and each one was named after states along the East Coast and referred to as “apartments”. In 1942, a new volunteer fire company built a fire station at the intersection of Franklin Street and Route 1 and named their company Penn Daw after the hotel. The area has been referred to as Penn Daw ever since.

During World War II, military personnel working at the Pentagon and Fort Belvoir fully occupied the hotel. From 1945-1948 each of the 37 rooms of the hotel were refurbished and modernized.

Dawson Jr. was associated with the hotel since its opening in 1927. After his father passed away in 1957, Dawson Jr. assumed ownership. The hotel closed in 1973 after 47 years of service. As of 2018, the original main building is still standing at 6300 Richmond Highway, although it is now largely unrecognizable as a Wells Fargo Bank.

Dawson Jr. went on to become the business manager at Episcopal High School. He was a member of the Alexandria Junior Chamber of Commerce, Washington Restaurant Association, Virginia Motor Court Association, Virginia Travel Council, and Virginia Hotel Association. In 1963, he bought an interest in Camp Alleghaney, an all-girls overnight summer camp founded in 1922 and located in the Alleghany Mountains in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Dawson Jr. managed the camp and it is continued to be owned and managed by his son, Sam Dawson.

In April 2003, Dawson Jr. and his wife moved to a retirement community in Salisbury, Maryland after more than 160 years of Coopers and Dawsons having lived on the same plot of land on Quaker Lane in Alexandria, Virginia. Dawson died at age 96 on October 13, 2005 in Salisbury, Maryland.

Scope and Content

The S. Cooper Dawson Jr. Collection on the Penn-Daw Motor Hotel spans the years c. 1930-1986 and consists of 0.5 linear feet of Penn-Daw Hotel materials including menus, a postcard, brochures, a letter, and reprinted article from “Tourist Court Journal” magazine.

Related Material

None

Separated Material

None

Index Terms

• Dawson, Samuel Cooper, Jr. (1909-2005)
• Penn Daw (Va.) - History
• Penn-Daw Motor Hotel

Adjunct Descriptive Data