1900–1960
chapter 6 of 8
Jim Crow Era
Segregation, WWI, WWII, early civil rights
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Places featuring this era
Beyond My Ken · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 110 Callahan Drive
1905 railway terminal at the foot of King Street, currently serving Amtrak, VRE, and Washington Metro Blue/Yellow lines. NRHP-listed 2013.
1005 Mount Vernon Avenue 1005 Mount Vernon Avenue
Colonial Revival 1934 high school in Del Ray, the first integrated high school in Alexandria after 1959; now George Washington Middle …
Joe Ravi ( Shutterstock iStock Dreamstime ) · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 101 Callahan Drive
Neoclassical 333-foot tower completed 1932 by the Masonic fraternity to honor George Washington; one of the largest private memorials in the …
Famartin · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 George Washington Memorial Parkway
Scenic parkway completed 1932 from Memorial Bridge to Mount Vernon, the first federally constructed parkway commemorating Washington's …
4195 West Braddock Road 4195 West Braddock Road
African-American cemetery established 1885 on land adjacent to Fort Ward, used by descendants of the freedmen's community known as The Fort. …
Unknown · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.5 World War II-era garden-apartment complex completed 1942-1944, an early example of large-scale federally-financed defense housing. …
Streetcar-suburb residential neighborhood developed 1908 onward on the western edge of Alexandria, characterized by Colonial Revival and …
Farragutful · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 Early-20th-century streetcar-suburb neighborhood incorporated as the independent Town of Potomac, annexed by Alexandria in 1930. NRHP-listed …
Parker-Gray neighborhood Parker-Gray neighborhood
Historically African-American residential and commercial district north and west of Old Town, anchored by the Parker-Gray School. …
![Old Loyd [i.e. Lloyd] House, Alexandria, Va.](/images/gtdju7ejdnwoq7p/old_loyd_i_e_lloyd_house_alexandria_va_2rutnb54Yg._hu_952f28a739427277.jpg)
Old Loyd [i.e. Lloyd] House, Alexandria, Va. · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · http://www.loc.gov/item/2016803285/ 220 North Washington Street
Late-Georgian 1797 townhouse at the corner of North Washington and Queen built by merchant John Wise. Charles Lee, U.S. Attorney General and …
1200 North Quaker Lane 1200 North Quaker Lane
The first high school in Virginia, founded 1839 by Bishop William Meade of the Episcopal Diocese on a 100-acre campus west of Old Town. …
Seminary Hill (off Seminary Road, near St. Stephens Road) Seminary Hill (off Seminary Road, near St. Stephens Road)
Layered Seminary Hill site that was the country estate "Muckross" of Burke & Herbert Bank co-founder Arthur Herbert, the Civil War earthwork …
1200 Duke Street 1200 Duke Street
Headquarters of T. J. Fannon & Sons at 1200 Duke Street, the Alexandria heating-fuel firm founded by Thomas J. Fannon as a wood-and-coal …
photographer not credited · via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain 300 North West Street
Glass bottle and jar works that operated in west-end Alexandria from the 1890s until the Depression, employing hundreds of workers including …
The Burke & Herbert Bank building in Alexandria, Virginia, a city immediately south of Washington, D.C., and once a larger, more thriving river port than the nation's capital city · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · http://www.loc.gov/item/2020724810/ 100 South Fairfax Street
The 1903 neoclassical home of at the corner of King and South Fairfax streets, the bank's sixth and final headquarters after a half-century …
Beyond My Ken · via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 105 North Union Street
Waterfront munitions plant built in 1918 as the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station; produced torpedoes through World War II, served as federal …
Placeholder illustration of Alexandria Library 1939. Seed placeholder — KingSt.com, 2026. To be replaced with archival photograph. 717 Queen Street
Alexandria's first free public library, opened on Queen Street in 1937, and site of a sit-in on August 21, 1939 that is among the earliest …
Placeholder illustration of Parker Gray School Site. Seed placeholder — KingSt.com, 2026. To be replaced with archival photograph. 900 Wythe Street
Site of Alexandria's segregated public school for Black students, opened in 1920 at 900 Wythe Street and replaced in 1950 by a new …
530 South St. Asaph Street 530 South St. Asaph Street
Continuously operating school site on South St. Asaph Street whose institutional lineage runs from the city's segregated Black schools of …
People of the era
Alexandria Library Association
founded 1937
The private nonprofit operating Alexandria's first free public library, which opened on Queen Street in 1937. The association's segregation policy excluding Black patrons was the …
The Fannon family
Five-generation Alexandria family that has owned on Duke Street since founded the firm as a wood-and-coal yard in 1885. Among the city's longest-running family-owned businesses.
John L. Lewis
b. 1880 · d. 1969
President of the United Mine Workers of America (1920-1960) and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Owned the from 1937 until his death in 1969.
Lewis Egerton Smoot
Spun off the coal, sand, and gravel arm of the family lumber business into a successful independent firm; namesake of the L. E. Smoot Memorial Library and associated philanthropies …
Lloyd "Tony" Lewis
First Black student admitted to any of the Episcopal Church Schools of the Diocese of Virginia, entering St. Stephen's School for Boys in Alexandria in September 1961 — four years …
Parker-Gray School
founded 1920· dissolved 1965
Alexandria's segregated public school for Black students, named for John Parker and Sarah Gray, two early Black educators in the city. Parker-Gray operated as the city's only Black …
The Smoot family
Multi-generation Alexandria family that owned and operated from 1822 until its 2023 closure — one of the longest commercial continuities in the city's history. Active in the …
T. J. Fannon & Sons
founded 1885
Alexandria heating-fuel firm founded by in 1885 as a wood-and-coal yard at 1200 Duke Street. Continuously operated by the Fannon family across five generations; converted from …
