This collection contains aerial photographs of Prince William County, Virginia taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture between December 1953 and March 1954 - approximately fifteen to twenty years prior to major development in the county. Population centers such as Haymarket, Woodbridge, Quantico, Occoquan, Manassas, and Dumfries as well as many now defunct family farms are captured in these early aerial photographs.

Arrangement of the photographs is based on two master maps, one created by the Virginia Department of Highways and the other by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The master maps divide Prince William County into fourteen flight lanes (vertical strips running north to south). Each flight lane is further divided into numbered segments, each representing three square miles.

The photographs are identified according to the flight lane and the segment each illustrates. (Example: in photograph 12.1, the first number, 12, indicates the flight lane and the number following the decimal point, 1, indicates the segment). This identification number can be found on the back of each photo in the upper right hand corner. It should be noted that the photographs often overlap one another by as much as fifty percent.

The collection comprises approximately 700 photographs. The photographs vary in size ( 9"x 9" or 11" x 11"). There are duplicates of many of the photos, and many of the larger photographs include soil survey maps.