Existing comment:
Burnt Mills:
This turbulent stream was the location of one of the county's earliest grist mills, which stood here starting in the 1700s. Originally called Bealle's Mill, it ground grain into flour for nearby residents.
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission built the Burnt Mills water filtration facility in 1929 to meet increasing demand for clean water in the rapidly-growing Washington DC suburbs.
The two brick Colonial Revival buildings houses offices and pumping equipment. The structures reflect a design that was popular for houses in the late 1920s, and are an interesting adaption of a domestic look for a municipal structure.
The Robert B Morse Filtration Plant:
This site represents the revolutionary move from one era to another -- from the use of water in order to power simple machines for local production, to the multi-million dollar industry of protecting the public water supply for a large region. The small site helped made possible the enormous growth that suburbanization brought to our region. |