Colvin Run Mill

Colvin Run Mill
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Virginia Landmarks Register
Colvin Run Mill
Nearest city	Great Falls, Virginia
Coordinates	38°58′8″N 77°17′38″W
Built	1810
NRHP reference No.	77001487
VLR No.	029-0008
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	August 16, 1977
Designated VLR	September 21, 1976

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.

Location

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.

Civil War era

The Battle of Dranesville was a small battle during the American Civil War that took place between Confederate forces under Brigadier General J. E. B. Stuart and Union forces under Brigadier General Edward O. C. Ord on December 20, 1861, in Fairfax County, Virginia, as part of Major General George B. McClellan's operations in northern Virginia. The two forces on similar winter-time patrols encountered and engaged one another in the crossroads village of Dranesville.

Ord, leading the 10,000 strong 3rd Brigade of Pennsylvania Reserves set out west from Langley to clear the south bank of the Potomac River of Confederate pickets and partisans in Fairfax and Loudoun. At Colvin Run Mill, Ord left half his force to protect his rear and prevent his force from being cut off from their base at Langley. The battle resulted in a Union victory.