The Office of Historic Alexandria’s weekly newsletter includes fascinating glimpses into the city’s history, and this week the newsletter explored a battle between city leadership and local children.
The Office of Historic Alexandria noted that the ban on public kite flying and marbles in 1876 came from Mayor Kosciusko Kemper, a former Confederate officer, after complaints from local businesses.
According to the newsletter:
On January 24, 1876, in response to growing complaints from residents and shopkeepers alike, Mayor Kosciusko Kemper ordered police to crack down on youthful offenders creating mayhem on the streets of Alexandria. Specifically, police were ordered to arrest anyone flying kites or playing the popular game of marbles on public streets or sidewalks, a directive that applied primarily to school-age children seeking amusement in the city.
The City’s website said Kemper was known for a campaign against loitering, though it was primarily aimed at ‘vagrants’:
By the fall of 1877, a large number of vagrants had assembled in Alexandria. Mayor Kosciusko Kemper ordered the police to “rid the city of tramps…” And, “if found inside the city after having been thus sent out, they will be put on the chain gang and required to clean the streets.”
The Alexandria Gazette archives around the day in question provided little more explanation about the restrictive ban.
City Historian Daniel Lee said the City has “from time to time cracked down on children playing on the sidewalks, including baseball.”
Alexandria’s occasionally odd historic bans have been the subject of discussion before, like a recent change lifting a ban on pool halls and language that referred to massage parlors as ‘disreputable’.
