Sugarland Run: The 2,993 acres where the present community stands was part of the first grant of land in Loudoun. The land was given to Capt. Daniel McCarty of Westmoreland County Feb. 2, 1709. The area got its name from the sweet juices that came from the trees, which could be made into sugar. The name Sugarland Run started in 1692, when Lt. David Strahan and his soldiers came across the land and he remarked that they came upon a "Runn that made into the suggar land."
Braddock Road: Braddock Road was known as Colchester Road in the 1700s when it ran from William's Gap in the Blue Ridge to Fairfax County's Colchester tobacco port. In 1755, when British Maj. General Edward Braddock was marching his troops to Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, to fight the French during the French and Indian War, it was rumored that he marched down Colchester Road to the battle. When Braddock was killed at the fort, the road was renamed for the military hero. It has since been learned that Braddock did not march through Loudoun, instead moving along Route 40 in Maryland, and only sending his second brigade through Loudoun.
Ashburn: Before 1896, today's Ashburn was known simply as Farmwell. The land was part of more than 10,000 acres granted to Thomas Lee, member of the House of Burgesses, one-time governor of Virginia and namesake of Leesburg, by Thomas, the sixth Lord Fairfax between 1719 and 1728. When Lee wrote his will, he left 4,700 acres, the area between Goose Creek and Broad Run, to his son, Thomas Ludwell Lee. The land was passed down from generation to generation, getting smaller with each inheritance as it was split between children, until it became known as Farmwell in 1802.
Broad Run: Broad Run received its name from two men who had been made ambassadors by the Virginia colony, Burr Harrison and Giles Vandercastle. The two men were sent out to visit the Piscataway Indians, who lived on Conoy Island across from Point of Rocks in the Potomac River. On April 17, 1699, the two wrote in their journals about having crossed a "broad Branch." The land surrounding Broad Run was owned by Thomas Lee and Robert Cater Jr. Lee owned 460 acres, bought in 1719, on Broad Run and Goose Creek, and 340 acres in three islands above the current Lowe's Island. Carter owned 1,498 acres in the same general area, purchased in 1731.