Occoquan Regional Park

Occoquan Regional Park is a regional park along a tributary of the Potomac River, located in Lorton in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia, USA.

It is protected and operated by the NOVA Parks agency of Northern Virginia.

Features edit

The park has dense forests, preserved Civil War arsenals and a tributary creek that flows into the Potomac River. At the park's center is a large, beehive brick kiln, the last of what had been as many as eight others that were used during the turn of the last century to produce many of the bricks found in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area. The bricks were mainly made by prisoners of the neighboring Lorton Reformatory, which closed in 2001.

The park also has the Jean R. Packard Center, a large wedding and events facility called the River View, as well as a Brickmakers Cafe. The Packard Center opened in June 2018,^[1] and was named after Jean R. Packard, an environmental activist and the former chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, as well as a long time NOVA Parks board member. She died in 2014.

For sports recreation it has a paved bicycle path, a 5 km loop trail, athletic fields and a public marina.

References edit

^ "Occoquan Recreated" (PDF). Fairfax Station, Lorton & Clifton Connection. July 5–11, 2018. p. 2. Retrieved February 23, 2024 – via Google Documents.