Information Panel: Welcome to Jones Point Park

Welcome to Jones Point Park

NPS / Claire Hassler

Quick Facts

Amenities

1 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

The open vistas, recreation fields, or fishing pier may be what drew you to Jones Point Park, but archeological and historical evidence shows that this land has been attracting people for a multitude of reasons durin the last 9,000 years. Over time, previous generations used and reshaped Jones Point in a variety of ways, creating Native American seasonal hunting and fishing camps, cultivating tobacco, erecting a 19^th-century ropewalk and a Civil War fort, and even transforming the landscape into an impressive industrial World War I shipyard. Of the few structures that remain, Jones Point’s lighthouse, built in 1855-1856, is the park’s most prominent feature. But Jones Point’s most important story lies in front of the lighthouse, where the south cornerstone of the original survey of Washington, DC, marks the founding of the nation’s capital city.