Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria was chartered by the General Assembly in 1749, immediately after a charter for a parallel town at Dumfries was approved. Scottish merchants were the sparkplugs behind the creation of the two new communities; the tobacco warehouses already at those locations were magnets for customers.

Both port cities were given the same set of street names, but the merchants ultimately chose one city over the other. Dumfries faded as a commercial center, in part because its harbor silted in and ocean-going ships found it difficult to reach the Dumfries wharves for loading/unloading cargo. In contrast, the capacity to load ships at Alexandria was improved by filling in the shallow harbor and extending the wharves into deeper water. Two blocks of land have been added to the waterfront, extending today from the back of the Carlyle House to the boardwalk in front of the Torpedo Factory Art Gallery

The relationship between Alexandria and the rest of Virginia has been complex at times. Alexandria was once part of Lord Fairfax's "proprietary" land grant. Theoretically, after the initial grant to King Charles II's friends, the area was outside the control of colonial officials to issue land grants.

Alexandria was transferred to the District of Columbia when the national capital moved from Philadelphia to the Potomac River in 1800. George Washington had maneuvered to have the developed portion of the Potomac waterfront in Virginia included within the boundaries of the new national capital, under the terms of the Residence Act. The southern tip of the District boundary was defined by a stone placed at Jones Point.

Washington may have expected Alexandria to benefit from an expected economic boom, as people moved to the new capital. However, public buildings such as the Capitol and White House were located north of the Potomac River. Alexandria County suffered, because neither Virginia nor DC would use public funds to develop the area.

In 1856, after the retrocession of the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia, the Federal government built a lighthouse at Jones Point. The lighthouse keepers cabin was located adjacent to the stone marking the southern tip of the District, and both structures are still there today.

Jones Point lighthouse, prior to shoreline being altered to create land for a WWI shipbuilding yard
(which converted Jones Point into a peninsula)
Source: Library of Congress, Jones Point, Potomac River, near Alexandria, Virginia / surveyed for the Engineer Department, April 1863

One economic activity in Alexandria was the slave trade, including the Franklin & Armfield business located at 1315 Duke Street. In the Compromise of 1850, the US Congress banned slavery in the District of Columbia, which was under Federal control. Alexandria and Virginia officials recognized the handwriting on the wall. They agitated in the 1840's to return or "retrocede" the Virginia portion of the District (south of the Potomac River) to Virginia. After a vote on the issue in Alexandria, the territory was returned back to Virginia in 1847.

Had the retrocession not occurred prior to the banning of slavery in DC in 1850, the Federal Distict could have become a flash point for Virginia slaves trying to escape into the "free" North. Retrocession placed a psychological and physical barrier, the Potomac River, between free vs. slave territory.

Few Virginians realize that Alexandria was the state capital between 1863-65, at least according to the Federal government based in Washington, DC. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, Richmond became the capital of the Confederate Virginia - but the northern states remaining in the Union did not recognize the new Confederate government.

Instead, a competing "Restored Government of Virginia" was created by the Union sympathizers in Virginia in 1861. Since the old location in Richmond was occupied by Confederate sympathizers, the Union side established the state capital of its version of Virginia in Wheeling, on the Ohio River. That location was far from the slave-owning Tidewater counties, safe from Confederate attack, and easily accessible from the northern states.

There was just one problem: West Virginia became a separate state in 1863, and Wheeling became the capital of the new state. Forty-eight counties now belonged to West Virginia, not Virginia. The governor of the Union version of Virginia, Francis Pierpont, had to leave Wheeling and move back to what remained of Virginia.

After the creation of West Virginia in 1863, there were few locations available within the now-altered boundaries of Virginia for Union sympathizers to locate a capital of the Restored Government of Virginia. The Civil War was still being hotly contested, and it was not clear which side would win.

Not all of the remaining territory of Virginia was controlled by Confederates, however. The Emancipation Proclamation listed the areas under Federal control, and thus "safe" for locating the Union version of Virginia state government until the Federal army captured Richmond.

In Virginia, those Federally-controlled areas included the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, plus the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth. The Eastern Shore was too far away for any government center. Hampton Roads was under military control of the Army, and the control of the military leaders would have limited the authority of any civilian state officials in the Norfolk area.

So Governor Pierpont chose to locate the Restored Government in Alexandria, in the shadow of his political sponsors in Washington and in a community protected by a ring of Federal Army forts. Alexandria served as the state capital, and Pierpont as the state governor, until the Union Army finally captured Richmond in April, 1865. At that point, the state government moved south again to the traditional capital, with the capitol building and the Governor's Mansion.

Alexandria finally boomed again after World War I. As the Federal government expanded during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, demand for housing increased. The Alexandria Water Company built Lake Barcroft to supply drinking water to the city in 1915, then switched to the new and larger Occoquan Reservoir in 1950.

Gentrification finally converted most low-cost housing into expensive townhomes/condos between 1970 and 2000.¹

Place Name	State	Homeownership Rate (percent)				Owner-Occupied Housing Units				Renter-Occupied Housing Units				Total Occupied Housing Units				Population: April 1, 2000
Place Name	State	1970	1980	1990	2000	1970	1980	1990	2000	1970	1980	1990	2000	1970	1980	1990	2000	Population: April 1, 2000
Alexandria city	VA	25.9	36.5	40.5	40.0	11,014	17,876	21,561	24,745	31,463	31,128	31,719	37,144	42,477	49,004	53,280	61,889	128,283
Chesapeake city	VA	72.0	72.7	73.0	74.9	18,098	26,462	37,916	52,335	7,055	9,921	14,049	17,565	25,153	36,383	51,965	69,900	199,184
Hampton city	VA	63.2	61.3	59.2	58.6	21,870	25,430	29,431	31,570	12,716	16,076	20,242	22,317	34,586	41,506	49,673	53,887	146,437
Newport News city	VA	55.4	52.0	50.0	52.4	21,884	26,682	31,993	36,513	17,653	24,632	31,959	33,173	39,537	51,314	63,952	69,686	180,150
Norfolk city	VA	42.8	43.9	44.0	45.5	37,157	38,575	39,383	39,238	49,585	49,227	50,095	46,972	86,742	87,802	89,478	86,210	234,403
Portsmouth city	VA	55.2	57.6	55.9	58.6	19,065	21,161	21,644	22,356	15,446	15,585	17,097	15,814	34,511	36,746	38,741	38,170	100,565
Richmond city	VA	49.1	47.2	46.3	46.1	40,599	40,462	39,515	39,008	42,170	45,335	45,822	45,541	82,769	85,797	85,337	84,549	197,790
Virginia Beach city	VA	68.4	64.2	62.5	65.6	30,865	54,693	84,723	101,308	14,264	30,462	50,843	53,147	45,129	85,155	135,566	154,455	425,257

To move into Alexandria today, you have to be prepared to pay dearly for property. As real estate agents constantly repeat, value of property is determined by three things - location, location, and location. What makes Alexandria so attractive? It's not a center of manufacturing. It's not a high-tech community like Silicon Valley. It's a small city... but it's adjacent to Washington DC. according to the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Alexandria "is ranked 4th in the nation behind Washington, DC, New York, and Chicago in the number of associations headquartered here."²

Alexandria offers a convenient commute to the Federal agencies via the George Washington Memorial Parkway or the Metro (both constructed primarily by funding from the Federal government). The taxpayers and business leaders in Alexandria could never have invested the dollars necessary to build the Metro - but the leaders of Alexandria have made sure it had excellent transportation facilities since the city was started in 1749.

The Transportation Network of Alexandria

Links

References

1. Fannie Mae Foundation (site no longer available)
2. "About Alexandria," Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, http://www.alexecon.org/about-alexandria.html (last checked September 17, 2010)