The location of Outdoor Lab on 226 acres in Fauquier County is due in great part to the Schellenberg Family, our. neighbors on Biscuit Mountain.
In the 1950s, the Schellenberg Family and Knipling families were neighbors in Arlington when the county was still rural with farms on Military and Marcey Roads where they lived. Both families loved nature and the Kniplings visited the Schellenberg’s country home at Afton Farm in Broad Run, VA.
By the early 1960’s, Phoebe Hall Knipling was working at Arlington Public Schools and holding “outdoor lab” summer camps at various regional parks, but she was looking for a more permanent location. By 1966, the Stryker family property just down the mountain road from the Schellenberg’s Afton Farm became available and Phoebe decided it was perfect for the Outdoor Lab.
The “Schellenberg boys” came to visit the Outdoor Lab and share stories of the land’s history.
We mourn the loss of Karl Schellenberg who came to the Outdoor Lab’s 50th anniversary to share stories about the old days on Biscuit Mountain and Arlington.
Karl told of his father, Theodore Roosevelt Schellenberg, borrowing a neighbor’s bulldozer to create their farm pond and later the same bulldozer was used to create the ODL pond. The apple orchard at Afton Farm was a great source of fun for everyone.