Sandston, VA - People-Named Places on Waymarking.com

Sandston is an unincorporated town located nine miles east of Richmond. Richmond International Airport is located nearby and served over 3.5 million passengers in 2007. The Battle of Seven Pines was fought here in 1862. That battle, part of the Peninsula Campaign, saw Union General George B. McClellan's advance towards Richmond halted by Confederate defenses. At the end of that battle, General Robert E. Lee was appointed commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The modern history of Sandston and the origin of the town's name are described on a Virginia highway marker a couple of blocks west. The text reads as follows:

In 1918 as World War I ended, the Seven Pines Bag Loading Plant #3, used for gun powder packing, was dismantled. The federal government sold 600 acres of land, and 230 Aladdin houses, that were erected for plant workers, to the Richmond-Fairfield Railway Company, organized by Oliver J. Sands. The Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan was the first company to offer in the United States kit houses with pre-cut, numbered pieces. In 1921 Sands announced the houses were for sale as Fairfield village. In Sands's honor the residents petitioned to change the name to Sandston.

The Person

OLIVER JACKSON SANDS, banker, was born at Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia, December 14, 1870. Mr. Sands began the active work of life in 1884, when he was only fourteen years of age, as a clerk in the Farmers bank of Fairmont. Four years later, he became paymaster and secretary to the chief engineer and president of the Monongahela River and West Virginia and Pittsburgh railroads. In 1891, he became assistant cashier of the First National bank of Fairmont, and in 1896 he was appointed National bank examiner for the District of Columbia and the state of Virginia. In 1899, he located in Richmond, Virginia. He was also president of the Virginia Bankers association, 1902-03, and was until 1906 president of the Bank of Commerce and Trusts of Richmond, and treasurer of the Jefferson Realty corporation.

In estimating the strength of various specified influences upon his success in life, Mr. Sands places that of home first, that of contact with men in active life second, and that of private study third in importance. The choice of his life-work was principally determined by environment.

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