ABOUT

Lorton is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, USA. The population was 18,610 as of the 2010 census.

History
Lorton is named for a village in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria in England, the hometown of Joseph Plaskett who settled in the area running a general store and opened the Lorton Valley, Virginia Post Office on November 11, 1875.Before the identity of Lorton, the commercial center was Colchester and the spiritual and historical center of the community around which the leading citizens of the time revolved was Pohick Church.From the early 20th century until November 2001, Lorton was the site of a District of Columbia correctional facility called the Lorton Reformatory which, among other things, detained approximately 168 women from thewomen's suffrage movement from the Washington, D.C. area from June to December 1917.A Nike missile site was built at Lorton in 1955, and remained until 1973.