The Alexandria Waterfront

The Alexandria Waterfront. . , Public warehouses for the receiving and inspection of tobacco were built in 1730 near the foot of present day Oronoco Street, and became the core around which grew the port of Alexandria. The city was founded in 1749 and flourished along with its upriver rival in the tobacco trade, Georgetown, founded two years later. Trade ships from England, the West Indies, Spain, France, Germany, New England, and elsewhere were common sights at Alexandria's wharves., Point Lumley , Site of the second shipyard in Alexandria, West's Point , Site of the first tobacco inspection station and the first shipyard, Alexandria waterfront, 1760s , In the Colonial years, Alexandria's shoreline was dominated by cliffs varying from three to twenty feet high. Ocean vessels docked at earthen wharves which extended up to three hundred feet across wide mudflats to the deep river channel. A system of pulleys and ladders raised and lowered goods to and from city streets., Alexandria waterfront, 1863 , In the 1780's, Alexandrians began a massive effort to infill the mudflats under the cliffs between Point Lumley and West's Point. Several city blocks were added at the waterfront which soon filled with commercial buildings including shipyards, flour and grain mills, a steam engine factory, fish packing shanties, ice houses, warehouses, inns, taverns, and other components of a busy port. Though this view shows a thriving waterfront, maritime commerce declined shortly after the Civil War., tobacco , From its earliest days, tobacco was the main product and a highly profitable source of trade in Alexandria. Virginia planters would convey barrels of tobacco to port by boat or wagon or by using special horse-drawn rigs. Several roads leading to the inspection station at West's Point were created by rolling barrels., wheat , Inspired by George Washington's agricultural experiments with crop rotation, Virginia farmers began to plant wheat on soil leached by tobacco. By the mid-1790s, Alexandria was the third largest exporter of wheat in the United States., shipbuilding , The shipbuilding trade was initiated in the 1760s by two shipyards , the first at West's Point, and the second at Point Lumley. Another sizeable shipyard opened in 1783 at the foot of Wilkes Street, remaining the area's largest boat-building enterprise for over a hundred years. Alexandria's leading role in shipbuilding continued into the twentieth century with the construction of a massive World War I shipyard on Jones Point.