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King Street

The block bounded by Cameron, Royal, King, and Fairfax streets has been the center of Alexandria’s civic life since the town’s 1749 founding. By the early nineteenth century the block carried a multi-use building that served simultaneously as market house, city hall, and Masonic hall — Alexandria’s combined government, commerce, and fraternal headquarters under one roof.

The Masonic upper floor

From the early 1800s the upper floors of the King Street building housed the meeting rooms of Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 Nonprofit Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 founded 1783 Alexandria's senior Masonic lodge, chartered in 1788 under the Grand Lodge of Virginia with as its first Worshipful Master. Custodian of the largest private collection of … , the lodge that George Washington Person George Washington b. 1732 · d. 1799 Planter, military commander, and first President of the United States. Master of Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799, and a regular presence in Alexandria, which he … had chartered as Worshipful Master in 1788. After Washington’s death at Mount Vernon in December 1799 the lodge became custodian of his personal Masonic objects — the silver trowel he had used to lay the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol in 1793, his Masonic Bible and apron, ceremonial regalia, and much of his correspondence — and over the decades that followed it built up the country’s largest single collection of Washington personal artifacts. The lodge’s upstairs rooms doubled as one of the earliest American museums ^[1] Source 1 Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 — "AW22 History" Website .

On February 21, 1825, the lodge formally received the Marquis de Lafayette Person Marquis de Lafayette b. 1757 · d. 1834 French general, American Revolutionary War officer, lifelong friend of , and one of the most celebrated foreign visitors in Alexandria's history. During his 1824–25 American grand … in these rooms during a Washington’s-birthday joint reception with Brooke Lodge No. 2 and Evangelical Lodge No. 8. Lafayette accepted honorary membership and presented the lodge with the great iron key to the Bastille that he had once sent to Washington at Mount Vernon ^[2] Source 2 City of Alexandria — "Lafayette in Alexandria" Government record .

The 1871 fire

Early on the morning of May 19, 1871, fire broke out in the City Hall complex. Members rushing in were able to save most of the Washington artifacts and a significant share of the lodge’s records, but the museum’s natural-science and art collection — one of the oldest in the United States — was largely lost ^[3] Source 3 Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 — "From the Archives: Witness Account of the 1871 Lodge Fire" Website . Beyond the immediate damage, the fire terrified Masons nationwide. The realization that irreplaceable founding-era relics could vanish in a single night catalyzed a half-century movement that would ultimately produce the fireproof granite tower of the 101 Callahan Drive Place 101 Callahan Drive A 333-foot granite tower atop Shuter's Hill, completed 1932 by Freemasons across the United States to honor as Charter Master of . Conceived after an 1871 fire at the lodge's Old … on Shuter’s Hill.

Adolf Cluss and the 1873 rebuild

To rebuild, the city engaged Adolf Cluss, the Washington-area architect later known for the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. Cluss reconstructed the City Hall in the Second Empire style on the original footprint, reinforced the interior with steel beams and stone to make it substantially fireproof, and worked with the lodge to expand the upstairs museum and lodge rooms. The reconstructed building was occupied by 1874 ^[3] Source 3 Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 — "From the Archives: Witness Account of the 1871 Lodge Fire" Website .

The lodge continued to meet on King Street for another half-century, moving its rooms — and the Washingtoniana — to the Shuter’s Hill Memorial only after the Memorial’s 1932 dedication. The 1873 City Hall remains in continuous municipal use today and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.