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Potomac Creek
Virginia Tributary
Potomac Creen flows 16.7 miles through King George and Stafford counties in Virginia. Long before Europeans arrived, the creek was home to the Patawomeck people, whose large village?documented by Captain John Smith in 1608?stood near its mouth and served as a major center of trade and diplomacy within the Powhatan world. During the colonial era, the creek became a transportation corridor for tobacco plantations and later for small river landings that connected the region to the wider Potomac. Its most dramatic moment came during the Civil War, when Union forces built the famous Potomac Creek Bridge--nicknamed "Beanpole Bridge" by Abraham Lincoln--an enormous, hastily constructed wooden trestle that carried the U.S. Military Railroad across the ravine to supply the Army of the Potomac. The creek's quiet waters and steep bluffs still hold traces of these eras, reflecting centuries of cultural, military, and environmental change along this short but historically rich tributary.
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Contact Information
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
600 E. Main St., 24th Floor
Richmond VA 23219
804-786-2674
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