Information Panel: Prehistory to Colonial Settlement / The Emerging Nation / World Wars to the Present

The emerging nation information panel

NPS / Claire Hassler

Prehistory to Colonial Settlement

Jones Point was once a wooded wilderness, ringed by marshes and periodically cut off from the mainland during high tide. American Indians made use of both woodland and wetland for food, tools, and supplies. By the late 17th century, Europeans had displaced the native peoples, felled the trees and planted row upon row of tobacco.

Attracted by the seasonal resources of the river, woods and marsh made available by the warming climates that followed the last Ice Age, small groups of native peoples left their inland villages in the spring to establish hunting and fishing camps on Jones Point.

European colonists were required to "seat" their land patents by planting tobacco. Stafford County planter John Alexander - an early owner of Jones Point - arranged for tenant farmers (including Charles Jones, for whom Jones Point was likely named) and crews of enslaved African Americans to work the remote farm.

A tobacco inspection station established near the foot of what is now Oronoco Street became the genesis of the active port town of Alexandria, founded in 1749.

The Emerging Nation

From the late 1700s into the 1800s, the pastoral calm of the Point was interrupted repeatedly - by soldiers manning cannon emplacements, by surveyors laying out the boundaries of the nation's capital, by workers at a ropewalk and the lighthouse, and by Union troops constructing a gun battery to defend the federal city during the Civil War.

During the Revolutionary War, cannon positions were established on Jones Point. These defenses were enlarged during and following the war, but eventually abandoned. However, it would not be the military's last use of Jones Point.

The survey that defined the original ten-mile square of the District of Columbia began here when surveyor Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker, a free black farmer and self-taught mathematician and astronomer, placed the south cornerstone on Jones Point in 1791. Although the cornerstone still stands today - located behind the 19th century lighthouse - the land on this side of the Potomac River was returned to Virginia in 1847.

A growing maritime industry brought a ropewalk to Jones Point, which manufactured ship's rope from 1833 to 1850. By 1856, Jones Point also had a lighthouse that guided ship traffic to the bustling ports of Georgetown and Alexandria. When the Civil War began, these ports found themselves on opposing sides. Union forces quickly occupied Confederate Alexandria, and in 1863 completed a gun emplacement above the Jones Point cove. Along with Fort Foote in Maryland, Battery Rodgers guarded the Potomac River approach to the capital.

World Wars to the Present

In the 20th century, Jones Point continued to be shaped by the changing needs of the federal government. With proximity to the capital and access to land and river transport, the peninsula was chosen as the site for several military installations and a vital bridge linking Virginia and Maryland. In this century, the federal government, through the National Park Service, plays a stewardship role. By joining forces with the City of Alexandria, the Daughters of the American Revolution and local citizen groups, the NPS works to preserve the Point's natural, historic and recreational resources.

In 1911, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers infilled the cove at Jones Point, creating 46.5 acres of new land. During World War I, the Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation used the infilled land to construct - in only 85 days - an enormous federal shipyard employing as many as 7,000 workers.

During World War II, Jones Point served as a military communications transmitter site operated by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Since the war, it has been used as a Naval Reserve station, U.S. Army Reserve facility, and shooting range for the Alexandria Police Department.

The replacement of the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge with the larger one you see today sparked extensive public debate. A multitude of entities, from government agencies to citizen action and preservation groups, were able to channel federal funds from the new bridge's construction to restore and interpret the historic resources of the Point, bring back wildlife habitat, and provide athletic fields, playgrounds and other recreational features.