Here's some good news

The Loudoun Museum announced Friday (June 18) that it will re-open its main galleries at Loudoun and Wirt streets in Leesburg on Friday, July 2. The museum has been under rennovation since early this year.
The museum's new exhibition is "The Lure of Loudoun: Virginia's Emerald County," which focuses on the county's early "agricultural landscape and lifestyle."
We are living today in one of our nation's oldest counties. Loudoun was founded in 1757 when it was split from Fairfax County because western landowners found it too difficult to get to the Fairfax County courthouse. Loudoun was named for the Earl of Loudoun, who at that time was John Campbell. He served as titular governor of Virginia, although he never set foot on this side of the Atlantic.
The next year, the community then known as "George Town" was renamed "Leesburg." The town was a crossroads, with what became Leesburg Pike (an early toll road from Alexandria that is now Rt. 7) and a north-south Indian path along where the mountains meet the flat Piedmont. Leesburg sits directly on this geologic dividing line -- an enduring feature that lies at the root of the county's differences between "eastern" and "western" Loudoun.
The new museum exhibit highlights period clothing, photographs, postcards and artifacts, including needlework, quilts and coverlets, a tall case clock and a pump organ -- plus locally made cabinets and chairs, silver and porcelain tea service pieces, and a spinning wheel and butter churn, among other items.
The exhibit also focuses on the rapid growth of Ashburn from a small agricultural town along the W&OD railroad into a hugh residential suburb following the opening of Dulles Airport.
The new museum also hosts a "Children's Discovery Room," described as "a special hands-on space just made for the curious explorer."
The museum was founded in 1967 in the original "log cabin" on W. Loudoun Street.
The museum's re-opening coincides with Leesburg's "First Friday" shopping event in which shops stay open late into the evening on the first Friday of each month.
Museum tours will begin at 6 p.m. and will be open to the public free of charge that evening.
For more information, call 703-777-7427 or e-mail bfriedmann@loudounmuseum.org.

-- martin casey