Great Falls, Virginia

The Great Falls Grange Hall and Forestville School are two historic buildings that served as a Grange meeting hall and as a school located in Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. The Forestville School was built in 1889 as a one-room school, and expanded in 1911 with the appendage of the Floris School. It is an "L"-shaped wood-frame structure covered in weatherboards and topped by a standing-seam metal cross-gable roof. After closing as a school in 1922, it served as a residence and then as the Great Falls Post Office from 1959 until 1982. The Great Falls Grange Hall was built in 1929, and is a 1+1⁄2-story brick building with a gable front. It features a front porch supported by concrete pillars in the American Craftsman style. Both buildings are owned by the Fairfax County Park Authority.The buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

William Gunnell House, also known as Gunnell's Run, is a historic home located in Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. It consists of a frame dwelling built in two stages and dated to about 1750, together with its compatible and unobtrusive 20th-century additions. The earliest section is a 1+1⁄2-story frame Colonial-era dwelling with irregular bays and three entrances. It was carefully restored and rehabilitated in the preservation manner of the Colonial Revival style after 1933. Also on the property are a contributing log house (c. 1770) outbuilding and two early wells.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Four Stairs is a historic home located at Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. The earliest section was built about 1737, as a gable-roofed, one-room, one-story with loft log house. It was later enlarged with a shed-roofed west side log pen and rear shed-roofed timber-framed kitchen. These early sections were raised to two-stories after 1796. A two-story, three-bay, parlor-and-side-hall-plan frame addition in the Greek Revival style was built about 1850, and became the focus of the house. The house was restored in 2002–2004. Also on the property are a contributing a family cemetery and a stone-lined hand-dug well.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

John Gunnell House, also known as the George Coleman House, is a historic home near Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. It was built in 1852, and is a two-story, five bay, "T"-shaped frame dwelling in a vernacular Greek Revival style. It has an English basement, attic, and intersecting gable roofs with brick chimneys at each of the three gable ends. Also on the property is a contributing outbuilding, now used as a tool shed.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

Spring Hill Farm is a historic home located at Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. It was built about 1822, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, frame farmhouse dwelling in the Federal style. A two-story rear wing was added in 1850. A 19th century south wing was replaced in 1972. Also on the property are two contributing barns, one apparently built before the American Civil War and one built in 1890.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Cornwell Farm is a historic home located in Great Falls, Fairfax County, Virginia. It was built in 1831, and is a two-story, five-bay brick dwelling with a hipped roof in the Georgian style. It has a 1+1⁄2-story addition connected by a gambrel roofed hyphen built in 1936–1937.The house was constructed by John Jackson for his daughter, Julia Jackson Davis, when the farm was called Mine Ridge. After a period when it was named Fairview, it was eventually known as Cornwell Farm after owner B.F. Cornwell. Following a period of abandonment, it was restored by Robert Thompson Pell from 1936, who expanded the house. Additions were designed by architrect Theodore W. Dominick.The house was later owned by Louisiana congressman Jerry Huckaby and his wife Suzanna. The property is the subject of an effort to purchase and preserve it, to avoid possible demolition and construction of a six-house subdivision. Cornwell Farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Matildaville is a ghost town located along the Patowmack Canal near present day Great Falls, Virginia, United States. It was named for the wife of Light Horse Harry Lee, on 40 acres of land owned at the time by Bryan Fairfax, 8th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, and served as headquarters for the Patowmack Company from 1785 until 1799. Now, all that remains of the town are a series of ruins on the grounds of Great Falls Park.

Colvin Run Mill is in Great Falls, Virginia. Built c. 1811, Colvin Run Mill is the sole surviving operational 19th-century water-powered mill in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and its restored mechanism is a nationally significant example of automated technologies pioneered in milling and later adopted across American industry. Down the gravel path of the park is the miller's house, home to the families who ran the mill. In 1883, Addison Millard moved his family here when he bought the old mill. Addison, his wife Emma, and some of their 20 children lived there. When Addison died, the family stayed and operated the mill until 1934. In the mid-1930s the mill was abandoned, and highway development caused it to be cut off from any near-by water source. The mill was later acquired by the Fairfax County Park Authority, repaired, and made open to the public.

Shady Oak is an unincorporated community in northern Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Shady Oak is primarily a residential community on the Potomac River.

Great Falls Park is a small National Park Service (NPS) site in Virginia, United States. Situated on 800 acres (3.2 km2) along the banks of the Potomac River in northern Fairfax County, the park is a disconnected but integral part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The Great Falls of the Potomac River are near the northern boundary of the park, as are the remains of the Patowmack Canal, the first canal in the United States that used locks to raise and lower boats.

Great Falls is a series of rapids and waterfalls on the Potomac River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream from Washington, D.C., on the border of Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia. Great Falls Park, managed as part of George Washington Memorial Parkway, is on the southern banks in Virginia, and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park parkland is along the northern banks of the river in Maryland. Both are operated by the National Park Service. The Potomac and the falls themselves are legally entirely within Maryland, with the state and county boundaries following the south bank of the river. Scenic views are offered on both the Maryland side and the Virginia side. The Billy Goat Trail on Bear Island, accessible from Maryland, offers scenic views of the Great Falls, as do vantage points on Olmsted Island (also accessible from Maryland). There are overlook points on the Virginia side. The Great Falls area is popular for outdoor activities such as kayaking, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, and hiking. Great Falls and Little Falls (about 5 miles downstream) are named in contradistinction to one another.

Olmsted Island is a small island in the middle of the Potomac River in the U.S. state of Maryland, near Great Falls which is a part of C & O Canal National Historical Park, located across the river from Great Falls Park. It is a part of Potomac, Maryland. Named for Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the landscape architect and preservationist whose famous father designed New York's Central Park, the small island is a bedrock terrace forest that supports rare, threatened and endangered plant species.The island is very rocky and has steep cliffs that face the river, where it has been eroded over time. It also has trees and vegetation. One might also spy a heron, small lizard or wild goose here. The total area of the island (estimating from calibrated satellite footage) is no more than 0.2 square kilometers. A fenced-in wooden tourist walkway winds along the southern part of the island. For the purpose of protecting the island's natural wildlife, visitors are not allowed to leave the tourist walkway. The tourist walkway eventually ends in a scenic overlook platform (see images 1 and 2) that has a beautiful view of the Great Falls of the Potomac River. "Hurricane Agnes washed away all the woody shrubs and trees in 1972," says R. Harrison Wiegand, a regional ecologist for the Wildlife and Heritage Service of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "The next big flood will wash them away again. The floods constantly change things. You may see a rare species in one area, then the floods will come through and wash it out. Some other plants will grow there instead. This is one of the most biologically diverse habitats within the whole national park system."The trail leading to Olmsted Island is handicapped accessible and has wheelchair ramps, but dogs are not permitted.