Nature
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The Potomac River is a 390 mile corridor of water, forests, fields, and wetlands that reflects ten thousand years of human habitation. It begins as a spring at the Fairfax Stone in West Virginia, becomes a tidal river at Washington, D.C., and widens to more than ten miles as it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. When Captain John Smith passed this site in 1608, Native American villages and stockade forts lined the shoreline, and a century-and-a-half later George Washington still looked across an unblemished landscape like the one seen from Mount Vernon today. Millions now live and work along this corridor, continuing cultural traditions laid down over ten millennia. The Potomac valley has been home to colonial estates, small farmers, watermen, and urban dwellers, while vast areas of wilderness and open space still remain along the river, countless historic sites have been preserved, and the river serves as one of the region’s prime recreational resources.
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Accokeek, Maryland · United States
