Alexandria Waterfront (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this trailside historical marker:

Alexandrians created waterfront land by banking out the shoreline using timber cribbing and old ships including three discovered on this site.

For over two centuries this land embodied Alexandria's working waterfront with an evolving mix of residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

Early Alexandrians built warehouses and commodious wharfs to ship tobacco, wheat and flour to other states and ports throughout the Atlantic.

Goods arrived by ship from around the world and were sold in Alexandria and across Northern Virginia.

Merchants, tradesmen & laborers - free and enslaved - lived & worked here.

Ship Building • Bakery • Shops & Taverns • Flour Mill • Lumber Yard • Steam Pumps • Engines • Monoplanes

Merchants & seamen brought commerce to the site.
1700s New land was created at the river front.
Carpenters, sailmakers & coopers plied their trades.
1700s: Enslaved people lived & worked here.
1751: Thomas Fleming - shipbuilding
1791: Andrew Jamieson - bakery

railroad lines supported commerce here.
1800s wharves & piers extended farther into the river.
Tailors, weavers, sailors, & shoemakers lived here.
1800s millers & coopers worked in the flour mill.
1854: Pioneer Mills - flour
1856: Pioneer Mills Cooper Shop - barrels
1892: W.S. Moore Sons Machine Shop & Foundry

Ship builders, machinists & mechanics worked here.
1900s Industrialization transformed the waterfront.
Buildings covered archeological sites below.
1900s warehouses replaced factories & homes.
1917: Alexandria Aircraft Corporation - hydroplanes
1937: Southern Iron Works - structural steel
1939: Robinson Terminal - paper warehouses