10
Prince Street

The brick and stone commercial building at 10 Prince Street, at the foot of the block nearest the Potomac, served as the administrative office of Interarms Business Interarms founded 1953 Alexandria-based arms dealership founded by Samuel Cummings in 1953, doing business as Interarms. For much of the Cold War the firm held one of the largest private inventories of … from the late 1950s until the company’s wind-down in the late 1990s ^[1] Source 1 Brogan & Zarca, Deadly Business, 1983 Book . The building predates the company by roughly seventy years and was one of a cluster of Prince Street commercial properties Cummings assembled as Interarms expanded.

From these offices Samuel Cummings Person Samuel Cummings b. 1927 · d. 1998 American-born, Monaco-based arms dealer who founded International Armament Corporation (Interarms) in 1953 and built its principal operations in Alexandria. At its peak Interarms … managed a worldwide business in the purchase and resale of surplus military firearms. Orders for shipments to foreign governments, civilian importers, and U.S. wholesalers passed through the Prince Street telephones and telex. Cummings himself lived principally in Monaco and traveled extensively; his Alexandria staff handled the day-to-day operation and coordinated with the warehouse complex at South Union Street Place South Union Street Complex of converted warehouse buildings along South Union Street used by Interarms from the late 1950s to the late 1990s to store surplus military small arms. At peak the complex … a few blocks south along the waterfront ^[1] Source 1 Brogan & Zarca, Deadly Business, 1983 Book .

The 1983 Brogan and Zarca biography and earlier feature pieces in Guns magazine (1959) and Sports Illustrated (1970) offer the most detailed published descriptions of the Prince Street offices ^[2] Source 2 LOC Prints & Photographs Photograph . After Cummings’s 1998 death the Alexandria operations were wound down and the office was leased for other uses.