Clarke's Gap, also known as Clarks Gap, is a

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places * Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland * Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits * Mountain pass, a lower place in a moun ...

through Catoctin Mountain west of

Leesburg, Virginia Leesburg is a town in the state of Virginia, and the county seat of Loudoun County. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town and ancestors of Robert E. Lee. Located in the far northeas ...

. The gap has an elevation of . The gap is not a true

wind gap A wind gap (or air gap) is a gap through which a waterway once flowed that is now dry as a result of stream capture. A water gap is a similar feature, but one in which a waterway still flows. Water gaps and wind gaps often provide routes which ...

, but rather a man-made railroad cut through a local saddle point between two ridges to the southeast and northwest created by the drainage of Dry Mill Branch of Tuscarora Creek to the east and an unnamed tributary of Catoctin Creek to the west. The original road between

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

and Winchester, known as Vestal's Gap or Braddock's Road passed through the gap beginning in the middle 18th century. Later, in the 1860s the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, predecessor of the

Washington and Old Dominion Railroad The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad (colloquially referred to as the W&OD) was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia, United States. The railroad was a successor to the bankrupt Washington and Old Dominion Railway ...

was routed through the gap. The railroad christened the gap when it established a station there, naming it after a nearby landowner, Addison H. Clarke. Today, Dry Mill Road (Virginia State Route 699 (VA Route 699)) and the

Washington and Old Dominion Trail The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a linear regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail (abbreviated as W&OD Trail), an asphalt-surfaced paved rail trail ...

still pass through the gap. VA Route 7 and VA Route 9 pass just to the north of the gap, through a man-made highway cut, which the

Virginia Department of Transportation The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is the agency of the state government responsible for transportation in the state of Virginia in the United States. VDOT is headquartered at the Virginia Department of Highways Building in downtown ...

has mistakenly signed as "Clarks Gap".

References

*Scheel, Eugene. ''Loudoun Discovered:Communities, Corners and Crossroads.'' Vol. 4. 2002, pp. 1–3. {{Gaps of the Appalachian Mountains Landforms of Loudoun County, Virginia Wind gaps of Virginia