We Built This City
Early Alexandrians built along the natural features of the landscape, but soon sought to alter them to suit their needs. Major development projects, such as filling in the Potomac River to shape the current waterfront, building railways, and the construction of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, created new real estate. These projects enhanced transportation of people and goods, and established and destroyed neighborhoods, with and without the consent of their residents. Later additions of highways, bus and subway lines connected Alexandria to Washington, D.C., Maryland and other parts of Northern Virginia, and altered perceptions and property values of new and long-standing neighborhoods. Oral histories help to give us an idea of what Alexandria neighborhoods looked like, and record lived experiences in areas that have seen change over the years.
How Has Your Neighborhood Changed?
Charles Sampson, Alexandria firefighter and life-long resident; interviewed by Mitch Weinschenk, February 26, 1999:
In the neighborhood where I lived, I guess it was called a middle-class neighborhood, Fannon’s Coal Yard was on the corner at Henry St., and the railroad, Southern Railroad, yard was across from the 1100 block of Duke, and we kids entertained ourselves there on a vacant spot of the railroad property. That was our ball diamond area, recreation area. They had a big wooden platform, which was used to unload cars and get down to the ground level. At the western edge of that section was a cattle pen. Anytime that the stock cars were to come in there…they have to stop and let the stock, whether it be cows, or sheep, hogs, whatever…get out of the car and into a little larger space, such as a stock pen…
Charlotte Smith, life-long resident of Alexandria, including Seminary Hill, Rosemont and Old Town; interviewed by Jennifer Hembree, October 29, 2005:
They had a trolley. I think it came to Alexandria (it went all the way to Mount Vernon) and the way it got across the river was like a causeway or something. There was already a road that went to Mount Vernon so it went beside the road down that way…It had to be in the [19]40s, or early [19]50s.
Betty Ward, Del Ray resident since 1940; interviewed by Molly Kerr, April 26, 2011:
I was glad to see the DASH bus come into being. When I was a kid growing up, we had the AB&W Company…It was a family-owned bus company. They drove the same bus every day. You had the same driver every day. You could go into the District for a dime. You could ride the trolley system, you could go all over. They had a better transit system back in that time period than they could ever have again. Unfortunately, they did away with the street cars. If I had my druthers, I would close King Street to automobiles and I would have trolley cars going up and down just taking the people back and forth.
Pat McArtor, fourth-generation Alexandrian; interviewed by Barbara Murray, July 22, 2008:
Well, when you went on down Del Ray Avenue, which was Peyton in those days, they had a beer garden. It was all the way down there at Mount Vernon Avenue. A lot of men would go in there and have beers. And then next to that was a grocery store, Clark’s Grocery Store. And, then it was mostly residential all up that way. But coming this way on Mount Vernon Avenue we had a ten-cents store. Then we had DiJoseph’s Grocery Store and another beer garden.
Jerry Sare, grew up in Chinquapin Village; interviewed by Jennifer Hembree and Pamela Cressey, November 29, 2001:
I love to do things for the city. When we moved here in 1940, which was before Chinquapin [Village] opened up, this was just a little Southern town, not really terribly clean and exceptionally segregated. I think Chinquapin and probably Cameron Valley (Cameron Valley was for the people at Fort Belvoir who worked there), and when those two communities started doing things in and around the city, it sort of helped the city get out of their Southern doldrums I think ’cause so many people were here with so many different lifestyles and things. I think it kinda helped make the city something other than a little Southern town.
C. Richard Bierce, architectural historian and preservationist; interviewed by Alan Palm, December 13, 2006:
It’s the essence of why the city is significant....Without the architectural context of Old Town and the close association with significant events in American history...we are just another medium-sized city of which there are dozens up and down the Eastern seaboard of equal or lesser significance...And the programs that the city has supported over the years – archaeology, research, BAR [Board of Architectural Review] – all come together to re-enforce that identity and continue it as a fundamental attribute of who is Alexandria – to the world.
Vola Lawson, Alexandria City Manager 1995 - 2000; interviewed by Alice Reid, May 21, 2009:
Parkfairfax had been built by Metropolitan Life. They started in late [19]41, early [19]42, and it was really a beautifully maintained place, and lots and lots of people had lived there. President Ford lived there. Dean Rusk lived there. Richard Nixon had lived there, and it was full of young professionals.
Barbara Barton, Director of the Alexandria Convention & Visitors Bureau 1978 - 1997; interviewed by Francesco De Salvatore, June 14, 2023:
I think in those days I did see the possibility of expansion, which happened gradually and was to some extent related to the expansion of the Metro. When the Metro station came in, and then when the busses started picking people up at the Metro and taking them down to the waterfront…and just dropping them off in various places, that was helpful.
Potomac Yard
Alexandria’s Potomac Yard was a railroad freight classification facility and a vital interchange point for rail traffic from 1906 - 1982. The Yard was located north of Slaters Lane, bound by U.S. Route 1 to the west and the Potomac River to the east. It was the first single yard facility in American railroad history designed for this purpose, and used by many different railroads. The Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad owned the Yard, and its overall management and expenses were shared by tenant lines. Since the 1980s the property has been redeveloped for homes and businesses, with rail traffic passing along the eastern edge. The Potomac Yard Metro Station, which opened in 2023, is the most recent rail development on the site.
Howard Truslow Beach, worked at Potomac Yard 1941-1982; interviewed by Susan Callegari, December 14, 2005:
One of my fondest days at Potomac Yard was my final promotion to assistant to the superintendent because I had often thought that many, many years ago I came over here to get a job as a messenger boy, and when it came time to retire, I had gone about as far as I could go.
Harvey Boltwood, raised in Alexandria, chair of Chamber of Commerce in 1988; interviewed by Margie Bates, September 14, 2005:
I remember when I was a kid and we used to go over (to Potomac Yards) when refrigerator trucks, cars would come through Alexandria, they’d stop at the Mutual Ice Company and we’d see all those people icing, putting blocks of ice down into the cars because that’s how they transported perishable goods from the South to the East and up North...
Howard Truslow Beach, worked at Potomac Yard 1941-1982; interviewed by Susan Callegari, December 14, 2005:
…a lot of Potomac Yard people lived in Del Ray; that was their home, and they could walk to work. I would think that a great number of ‘em were practically neighbors.
Mary Sullivan, Del Ray resident since 1946; interviewed by Mary Baumann, September 6, 2003:
Most everybody in this area, men, worked at the railroad. And we could hear the big…hear the trains, it was between the north and the south was the freight yard. And they had the hump, what they called the hump. The trains would come up and you could hear them bump. All during the night you’d hear them change and bump because of the hump there. …it was the largest railroad between the north and the south.