Shady Oak, Virginia

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.

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.

Great Falls is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population as of the 2010 census was 15,427, an increase of 80.5% from the 2000 census.CNNMoney ranked Great Falls first in the nation on its list of "top earning towns" in 2011.

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.

Dierssen Wildlife Management Area is a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) near Seneca in Montgomery County, Maryland.The WMA covers a 40-acre (16 ha) tract of marshy woodland, with two man-made ponds ('impoundments') for wildlife, located between Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath (mileposts 20.08 to 20.90) and the Potomac River. The nearest access point is the Pennyfield Lock parking lot at MP 19.7. Unlike most WMAs in Maryland, Dierrsen is a wildlife sanctuary - no hunting is allowed, but hiking and photography are encouraged. Because of the impoundments and location on the Potomac migration route, the tract is a well-known habitat for waterfowl, wading birds and songbirds. There are nesting boxes for wood ducks. Also present are white-tailed deer, gray and red fox, beaver, and wild turkeys. The site, donated as a waterfowl sanctuary, is named for Marshall Bidwell Dierssen.

Watts Branch is a tributary stream of the Potomac River in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Seneca Dam was the last in a series of dams proposed on the Potomac River in the area of the Great Falls of the Potomac. Apart from small-scale dams intended to divert water for municipal use in the District of Columbia and into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, no version of any scheme was ever built. In most cases the proposed reservoir would have extended upriver to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The project was part of a program of as many as sixteen major dams in the Potomac watershed, most of which were never built. The earliest proposals for exploitation of hydropower on the Potomac were made in the 1880s. By the 1920s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reviewed the possibilities for hydroelectric power. After a new study mandated by Congress in 1936-37, the Corps of Engineers in 1938 proposed a dam for flood control, power generation and water quality improvement, to be located above Great Falls at Riverbend. The scheme was revived following World War II. Opposition to the flooding of the entire river to Cumberland by a chain of dams, and to the inundation of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal doomed the Riverbend proposal. However, in 1963 the Corps proposed a new plan to improve water quality on the Potomac, which moved water storage off the main stem of the Potomac to its upper tributaries and scaled the Riverbend dam back to a lower dam at Blockhouse Point, near the mouth of Little Seneca Creek, to be called Seneca Dam. This proposal was debated through the 1960s until it was finally abandoned in 1969.

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.

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.

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.