Living on the Edge: Uncovering and Sharing the Stories of Bull Run Mountain’s Diversely Peopled Past

Located in Fauquier and Prince William Counties, the Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve is a 2,350-acre living laboratory and open-air museum which hosts regionally threatened plant and animal species and protects cultural sites that reflect the area’s diverse past. Free blacks, the formerly enslaved, poor white European immigrants, and descendants of Virginia’s Native American tribes all came to the mountains and their hollows to build lives that we can find remnants of today. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s project will allow staff and researchers to uncover more information about the Bull Run families; to engage with a more diverse public via guided hikes, social media and blog posts about the Black and African American history of the Preserve; and cement this research in a publicly accessible format. In addition, this project will allow the successful Cultural History fellowship program with one of Virginia’s HBCUs to continue.

2023 Chesapeake Gateways Funding

$77,000.00