Indian Head, Maryland

Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division (NSWC IHD)—also known as Naval Support Facility Indian Head—is a United States Navy installation in Charles County, Maryland. Part of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), it is one of ten divisions of the Naval Surface Warfare Center (WFC). Its mission is to research, develop, test, evaluate, and produce energetics (i.e., explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, reactive materials, related chemicals and fuels and their application in propulsion systems and ordnance). The U.S. Navy's presence in Indian Head dates to 1890, when the Bureau of Ordnance dispatched Robert B. Dashiell to establish a naval ordnance center. Dashiell served as Inspector in Charge of Ordnance there from 1890 to 1893. During World War I, the facility served as Naval Proving Ground, Indian Head. It is the United States Department of Defense (DoD)'s largest full-spectrum energetics facility. It employs more than 1,900 people, including more than 850 are scientists, engineers, and technicians that develop and sustain explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, high-energy chemicals, and their application to weapons. In addition, NSWC Indian Head has the WFC's largest concentration of Ph.Ds working in energetics, including the highest number of synthetic chemists, detonation physicists, and formulation scientists.The Division pursues basic research, applied technology, technology demonstration, prototyping, engineering development, acquisition, low-rate production, in-service engineering/mishaps and failure investigations, surveillance, and demilitarization.As the U.S. Navy’s lead technical authority in the United States, NSWC Indian Head performs more than 60% of all Navy energetics workload, and has an unmatched record of 13 Navy-qualified explosives used in 47 Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps weapons. Seventy-five percent of all explosives deployed in U.S. weapons were developed by NSWC Indian Head. The main site for NSWC IHD is at Naval Support Facility Indian Head, a 3,500-acre peninsula along the Potomac River in southern Maryland, at the southern terminus of the Indian Head Highway. It also has operations in McAlester, Oklahoma; Colts Neck, New Jersey; Ogden, Utah; Louisville, Kentucky, and Picatinny, New Jersey.

Marbury is an unincorporated community in Charles County, Maryland, United States. It has been designated the zip code of 20658. Marbury is located 6.3 miles from Indian Head on Maryland Route 224. Marbury was the point at which the tornado of April 28, 2002 touched down, before traveling east to demolish much of La Plata. Marbury is located at 38°34′31″N 77°09′21″W (38.575278, -77.155833)

Potomac Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in Charles County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,117 at the 2010 census. It has a volunteer fire department and numerous older rambler homes built for workers at the nearby U.S. Navy munitions plant in Indian Head (now known as the Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center).

A Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) is part of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) operated by the United States Navy. NAVSEA Warfare Centers supply the technical operations, people, technology, engineering services and products needed to equip and support the Fleet and meet the warfighter's needs. The Warfare Centers are the Navy's principal Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) assessment activity for surface ship and submarine systems and subsystems. Additionally, the Warfare Centers provide depot maintenance and In-Service Engineering support to ensure that the systems fielded today perform consistently and reliably in the future.

NOVA Wild is a 30-acre (12 ha) zoo in Reston, Virginia, United States. The zoo features a self-drive-through Safari with zebras, bison, and llamas, and a walking tour with cheetahs, capybaras, kangaroos, sloths, camel rides, and a bird aviary. The zoo has over 50 species of animals.

Henry E. Lackey High School is a high school in Charles County, Maryland, United States. It is run by Charles County Public Schools.

Mattawoman Creek is a 30.0-mile-long (48.3 km) coastal-plain tributary to the tidal Potomac River with a mouth at Indian Head, Maryland, 20 miles (32 km) downstream of Washington, D.C. It comprises a 23-mile (37 km) river flowing through Prince George's and Charles counties and a 7-mile (11 km) tidal-freshwater estuary in Charles County. About three-fourths of its 94-square-mile (240 km2) watershed lies in Charles County, with the remainder in Prince George's County immediately to the north.

Mason Springs is an unincorporated community in Charles County, Maryland, United States. Mason Springs is located at the junction of Maryland routes 224 and 225, 1.8 miles (2.9 km) southeast of Potomac Heights. The community had a post office from 1890 to 1924.Araby, a house on the National Register of Historic Places, is located in Mason Springs.

Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge of the United States located in Virginia. It is part of the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex. It is on Mason Neck, a peninsula in the Potomac River that forms part of the shoreline of Belmont Bay. The refuge is adjacent to Mason Neck State Park. Established in 1969 and managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, it was the first federal refuge created specifically for the protection of the bald eagle. It is 2,277 acres (9.21 km2) in size, with 4.4 miles (7.1 km) of shoreline. It is covered with oak and hickory forest and it includes the largest freshwater marsh in northern Virginia. Since its founding, the refuge has been renamed for Elizabeth S. Hartwell, a local activist who fought to keep Mason Neck free of development.

Mount Aventine is a farm complex and national historic district located along the Potomac River in Bryans Road, Charles County, Maryland. The complex includes the main house; a second-quarter 19th century Greek Revival-influenced brick house. It was enlarged about 1860 to its present five-bay, center-passage, 2+1⁄2-story appearance. Also on the property are a 19th-century frame smokehouse, the site of another 19th-century house complex, late-19th /early-20th-century agricultural outbuildings, house and dairy barn complex built about 1900, historic roadbeds, a family cemetery, and sites of a 19th-century fishery and an 18th-century house.Its former cupola was used as a signal station by the Federal government during the American Civil War. The Chapman family owned the Mt. Aventine tract from 1751 until 1916, and the ferry operated by them was one of several important crossings of the Potomac River connecting Northern Virginia to Maryland.It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, and since 1998 has been preserved as part of Chapman State Park.The house is open for tours during special events hosted by the Friends of Chapman State Park.

Chapman State Park is a public recreation and historic preservation area bordering the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland. The state park preserves the mansion and grounds of Mount Aventine, the historic home of the Chapman family, who had significant ties to many of the Founding Fathers. The park's diverse, heavily wooded biosphere is home to many rare and disjunct plant and animal species. Several of the park's trees have been nominated for state and national big tree champion status. Recreational features include fishing, hunting, and several miles of hiking trails.

Araby is a historic house located near Mason Springs, Charles County, Maryland. An example of Federal architecture, it was built in the mid-1700s and underwent extensive renovations a hundred years later. Much of the house remains unaltered from that time.Merchant William Eilbeck built the plantation house, where he lived with his wife Sarah. He was one of the wealthiest men in Charles County, and held the rank of colonel in the local militia, and by 1745 was one of the gentleman justices of the local court. Eilbeck also had another plantation nearby, but only one child, a daughter Anne. In 1750, planter George Mason married Anne. The young couple lived with the Eilbecks while constructing Gunston Hall on his Virginia estates, and continued to visit Araby from time to time. Another of Anne's former suitors, George Washington, who owned a nearby property, was a frequent visitor. Sarah Eilbeck survived her husband, so Araby did not pass to their third grandson William Mason (1757-1820) until her death in 1780, when he was 23 and an officer in the Fairfax militia.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.