Alexandria, an international seaport from the beginning
Source: Library of Congress
The Alexandria merchants created a transportation network into the "backcountry," the farmland west of the Fall Line (including the Shenandoah Valley as well as the Piedmont). The Alexandria merchants reached out first to Loudoun County farmers in the 1790's. Alexandria stimulated and financed the Little River Turnpike, today's Route 236 from Alexandria to Jermantown (near the Fairfax campus of George Mason University) and then Route 50 west past Chantilly to the Blue Ridge.
It was the first successful turnpike in the South. (The Philadelphia-Lancaster turnpike, drawing the trade of farmers in southeastern Pennsylvania to Philadelphia and away from Baltimore, was the first successful toll road in North America.) Next target was the agricultural trade from Prince William, Fauquier, Culpeper, and Orange counties. Alexandria financed (with help) a turnpike to Warrenton, today's Route 29 from Jermantown to Warrenton. The Stone House on Manassas Battlefield was a stopping point for travelers on that road.
Alexandria merchants were part of the Patowmack and C&O Canal initiatives. They even built an extension of the later canal, crossing the Potomac River on Aqueduct Bridge. That was intended to draw canal boats to the deeper water port, Alexandria. Georgetown merchants might get first crack at the trade along the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Coast using shallow water ships, but Alexandria was an attractive destination to those boats engaged in international trade (where ships required a deepwater channel not available at Georgetown).
When Alexandria was included within the boundaries of the District of Columbia in 1800-1846, there was no reason for Virginia politicians to support the economic growth of the city. Almost as soon as Alexandria was "revested" back to Virginia, however, the General Assembly chartered the Orange and Alexandria railroad. The O&A stretched southwest from the port city through the Piedmont, attracting the farm trade more effectively than the Warrenton Turnpike.
That railroad defeated the efforts of Fredericksburg merchants to attract the same business by building a canal up the Rappahannock. By the time the Rappahannock Canal got to Kellys Ford (near present-day Remington in Fauquier County), the Piedmont farmers were already accustomed to shipping via the railroad to Alexandria. The canal was a dismal failure, economically.
Alexandria was not satisfied with just the trade from the Piedmont. Their ambitions extended further west, to the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. They got a charter for the Manassas Gap railroad, which was expected to run from Mount Jackson to Alexandria. Once again, Alexandria competed successfully with Fredericksburg by building a better transportation system from the "hinterland" (the surrounding region dependent on the central city) to the Potomac. After the Panic (recession) of 1857, construction of the Manassas Gap railroad was truncated. It was connected to the O&A at a location named Manassas Junction, a name soon shortened to just "Manassas."
The effort to build the Alexandria, Loudoun, and Hampshire railroad shows the ambitious scope of the city merchants and civic leaders. The AL&H was expected to bring coal traffic from Hampshire County (now in West Virginia) to Alexandria, in addition to the farm trade from the Winchester area. The AL&H route is the current W&OD bike path. The bike trail stops in Purcellville today; the AL&H was never built across the physical barrier of the Blue Ridge.
Alexandria and Dumfries were chartered on the same day in 1749, and both were sponsored by Scottish merchants with comparable (rather than intensely rival) economic interests. The towns even have the same pattern of colonial street names - Prince, Duke, etc..
However, Dumfries failed to build roads, canals, or railroads to facilitate farmers bringing crops to their docks. Dumfries also failed to prevent soil erosion from silting up the harbor, which is traditionally cited as the reason for "Virginia's oldest continuously chartered town" from failing to grow. Within 25 years after the initial founding date, Alexandria was thriving while Dumfries had already faded into obscurity. Dumfries business largely ceased when the port was filled with sediment. Efforts to dredge a channel or move downstream ("Newport" townhomes on the south bank have that name for a reason...) failed, and Dumfries literally became a backwater.
When the Washington Post started shipping newsprint by rail instead of ship to its Robinson Terminal several years ago, Alexandria lost its last major freight operation. The coal-fired power plant generating electricity in Alexandria also gets supplied by trains. Today, the transportation network is designed to facilitate moving commuters rather than raw materials or manufactured products.
