History

After Fluvanna County purchased the 969 acre Pleasant Grove farm in 1994, several members of the Historical Society suggested that it would be an ideal location for a public trail system. From that notion, the Fluvanna Heritage Trail Foundation was eventually formed. With over 150 dues-paying members, the Foundation has been working jointly with Fluvanna County and the Fluvanna County Historical Society on a number of highly successful programs.

Group of volunteers gets ready to work on the trail.

Working with the Historical Society, we built an ADA accessible Julie King Sandy Beach Trail on Pleasant Grove, designed and built the Historical Society’s Village Park in Palmyra and stabilized the Society’s historic mill. Volunteers designed and built a 3.5 mile trail system on Pleasant Grove with trailheads at the pole barns and at the eastern end of the county property. Using TEA-21 transportation enhancement grants and a grant from the Department of Conservation and Recreation, we designed and built the road access at the eastern trailhead. 

In 2006, the county and the Foundation dedicated three beautiful new picnic shelters at the eastern trailhead. These picnic shelters were designed by well known architect, Carlton Abbott, and have been a popular addition to the trail. We also worked successfully over a number of years to have a separate pedestrian walk on the new VDOT Route 15 replacement bridge. The bridge has been designed to be compatible with its historic setting and includes three pedestrian overlooks on the trail side facing the Historical Society’s mill.

In 2005, the county and the Foundation cooperated in a TEA-21 project to restore the historic summer kitchen at Pleasant Grove and to use it for a new western trailhead and museum of Pleasant Grove and transportation history. The exhibits in the Summer Kitchen opened to the public in the summer of 2007. The Foundation is enthusiastically supporting the county’s efforts to raise funds for the adaptive reuse of the adjacent Pleasant Grove House.