Fort C. F. Smith Historic District

Fort C.F. Smith Park in Arlington, Virginia, covers 19 acres on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River and Spout Run. It preserves the earthworks of a Civil War fort that was occupied from 1863 to 1865 and built mid-war to strengthen the defenses of Washington. The fort was a lunette with two faces and two flanks, and its bastions on the north flank are an unusual feature for that type of work. After the army dismantled the fort in the fall of 1865, the land returned to the Jewell family and later became a private estate. The estate's main house combines Gothic Revival, Stick, Queen Anne, Shingle, Craftsman and Colonial Revival elements, and the grounds include gardens and a vista toward Georgetown. The ruins were integrated into the landscape rather than reshaped, which helped protect them. The district is listed for its military history and for archaeological deposits from the Woodland period to the twentieth century.