Elizabeth Mills Riverfront Park
Potomac Connections
This riverfront park will transport you back in time. It will enable you to look beyond the modern developments that dominate the landscape here today. It will take you back centuries, when American Indians lived here, harvesting the bounty of the river and fertile floodplain. It will lead you to Goose Creek where the ruins of Elizabeth Mills rest. Mill owner Samuel Clapham built the mill in 1807 and named it after his daughter. Along the way you'll discover an 1850s canal that connected with the C&O Canal. History awaits you, nature invites you.
Experience Your Park
This riverfront park is part of a linear park system in Loudoun County linked by the Potomac Heritage Trail. Follow the signs that lead through the golf course to the Trail and river's edge. Elizabeth Mills is a 125-acre park along the Potomac River and Goose Creek. Kephart Bridge Landing canoe launch (off Riverpointe Drive) offers river access via the creek.
Hike west along the river and south along Goose Creek to Kephart Bridge Landing. There you'll find the Elizabeth Mills ruins, where the historic Carolina Road bridge the creek, and evidence of the Goose Creek Canal. Along the way you'll discover a double canal lock, built of Seneca sandstone in the 1840s and 50s and used only once. The round-trip hike takes about 2 hours at an easy pace.
The effort to make Goose Creek and Little River navigable by locks and dams may now be admitted to have been a failure...
H.E. Powell, president Goose Creek and Little River Navigation Company, 1857
Potomac Connections
Piedmont RegionGeorge Washington walked, road horseback, and boated through this region pursuing his dream of westward expansion - connecting the Atlantic Seaboard to the frontier West. His efforts to reengineer, dam, channelize, and straighten the Potomac River influenced industrialization in the 1800s and beyond. But the river resisted. Today wild intermingles with urban. Huge oaks, sycamores, and tulip poplars guard the river and welcome all seeking solace there.
The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail network is a portal into the region's history, culture, and ecology. Here a network of hiking and water trails affords you an intimate connection with the river and the distinctive Piedmont landscape. The trails beckon exploration and offer adventure.
Marker is on Squirrel Ridge Road, on the right when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
