For more than a century, spring water has been drawn from the Camp Holly aquifer in eastern Henrico County to be sold to the Richmond area. Stewardship of this important source of drinking water was assumed by the Dowdy family in the 1950s and distributed under the name Diamond Springs. Three generations later, “Dusty” Dowdy worked with Capital Region Land Conservancy and the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, (administered by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources) to place a historic preservation and open-space easement on 139 acres in Henrico County.
Equally important to the property are the historic resources associated with indigenous peoples and military encampments during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.
The entire Camp Holly property is described in ConserveVirginia 3.0 as the highest priority land to be conserved across the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Cultural and Historic Preservation, Water Quality Improvement, and Agricultural and Forestry categories.
