Qualla: Great Falls Park

Great Falls Park: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bpiereck at English Wikipedia, Public domain. George Washington was an investor in the Patowmack Canal Company. He put his own money into the project, walked the ground himself, and watched as workers blew apart Potomac bedrock with gunpowder to build a mile-long bypass canal around the falls. Construction began in 1785, and when the Great Falls locks finally opened to traffic in 1802 after seventeen years of labor, the Patowmack Canal was among the earliest canals in the United States to use locks to raise and lower boats, and one of the earliest engineering uses of blasting powder anywhere in the world. It was never profitable. By 1830, with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal opening on the Maryland side and railroads about to overtake everything, the Patowmack Canal was abandoned. The locks crumbled. The river took some of them back. Today the ruins are part of Great Falls Park, and the stonemason's marks on what remains are identical to marks found on the foundation stones of the White House and the Capitol.

Read more: Great Falls Park on Qualla

Image: Bpiereck at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Great Falls Park: Petroglyphs and the Fall Line

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Tegethoff from Arlington, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. Great Falls is where the Atlantic Coastal Plain ends and the Piedmont begins. The Potomac, flowing east, encounters a ridge of erosion-resistant metamorphic rock, drops seventy-six feet through a series of major cascades, and funnels into the narrow gorge that geologist William M...

Read more: Great Falls Park on Qualla

Image: Mark Tegethoff from Arlington, VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Great Falls Park: Washington's Canal

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit UzbekistanQoppa, CC BY 4.0. The Patowmack Canal cut west from above the falls and rejoined the river below them, allowing small barges loaded with flour, tobacco, and grain to bypass the cataracts. Five locks lifted and lowered boats through the drop. The locks themselves were wood-and-stone construction. S...

Read more: Great Falls Park on Qualla

Image: UzbekistanQoppa | CC BY 4.0

Great Falls Park: Matildaville

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Shenk from Great Falls, VA, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. A small town called Matildaville grew up beside the canal during its operating years. Matildaville was a planned settlement, founded by Henry Light-Horse Harry Lee III, the Revolutionary War cavalry officer who served as Virginia's governor in the 1790s and who would later father...

Read more: Great Falls Park on Qualla

Image: Rob Shenk from Great Falls, VA, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Great Falls Park: The Trolley Park

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Tegethoff from Arlington, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. Between 1906 and 1932, the Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad ran an electric trolley line from Georgetown to a small amusement park at the falls. The trolley park was a typical Edwardian-era weekend destination with picnic grounds, a dance pavilion, a carousel, and a searchli...

Read more: Great Falls Park on Qualla

Image: Mark Tegethoff from Arlington, VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

Great Falls Park: What to Do Here

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jyothis, CC BY-SA 3.0. Great Falls Park covers eight hundred acres on the Virginia bank of the Potomac, accessed from Old Dominion Drive off Virginia Route 193, with a twenty-dollar entrance fee per vehicle. The park has fifteen miles of trails, three viewing overlooks on the cliffs above the falls, a ...

Read more: Great Falls Park on Qualla

Image: Jyothis | CC BY-SA 3.0