Occoquan, VA Shirts

Water built Occoquan, and water still explains it. A gristmill rose at the falls of the Occoquan River in the 1750s, and by the turn of the nineteenth century it had become one of the young nation's first automated mills, its machinery lifting grain from wagon or barge, grinding it, and returning it with hardly a hand laid on. The mill ran for well over a century before fire took it in 1924, leaving the miller's modest house behind to keep the town's memory, which it still does. Around that memory, the village reinvented itself as a place for wandering: artisan storefronts crowded along a few narrow blocks, a footbridge crossing the river, kayaks where the barges used to be. Our Occoquan design follows the current: a mill wheel turning at the center, the footbridge arcing above the water, and the little storefronts stacked along the bank like books on a shelf. Local Occoquan shops and makers will be listed on this page as they join ShirtMap.