1699-1914

"Big Chimneys," named for its two large brick chimneys, was probably the first permanent structure on the land that is today within the City of Falls Church. The home stood just east of this sign. The year "1699," inscribed on a chimney-stone, is thought to be the date the structure was built. This is also the date that the community of Falls Church traditionally accepts as its beginning.

The original cabin was made of logs in the Scotch-Irish style, with a back door directly opposite the front door to allow cows to be brought in through the front for milking and then taken out back. The cabin was built near the intersection of early footpaths which became busy roads during the colonial era. The cabin, newly expanded, became an inn, or "ordinary," in the early 1800's to serve travelers plying these roads.

Big Chimneys' central location was a day's horseback ride from regional river crossings and early settlements. When the Church of England established a church to serve early residents in the 1730's, it did so a few hundred yards east of Big Chimneys, the site on which the Falls Church still stands. The village which later grew up around this well-suited crossroads is today the City of Falls Church.

Big Chimneys was torn down by 1914.

Just beyond this sign is the footprint of the cabin, recreated to scale by the Boy Scouts of America Troops 681 for the 1999 Tricentennial.

Marker is at the intersection of Annandale Road and Gundry Drive, on the right when traveling east on Annandale Road.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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