The Race to Build Ships on Jones Point

The Race to Build Ships on Jones Point. Alexandria Goes to War. In response to a shortage of ships and shipbuilding facilities at the start of World War I, the U.S. government decided to enter the shipbuilding business. In 1917, the U.S. Emergency Fleet Corporation was created and eventually oversaw construction of 218 shipyards, including one here on Jones Point. The first piling for the Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation's shipyard was driven in February 1918. The massive facility was up and running just 85 days later, a reported world record., The arrival of thousands of shipyard workers in Alexandria shattered the domestic tranquility of Jones Point. Responding to the acute worker housing shortage, the Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation began construction of 100 houses in the nearby suburb of Rosemont during the summer of 1918. Posters such as this one encouraged the new hires to “pull together.”