Visit Alexandria‘s newest marketing campaign is tapping into the stories behind businesses, tourist attractions and unique personalities.
From now until June, the Unlock Your Story campaign will tell stories all over Alexandria, focusing on the city’s history, small attractions, and unique small businesses, artists and entrepreneurs. The promotion follows Visit Alexandria’s Best Kept Shh! campaign, which launched three years ago and positioned Alexandria as the region’s best kept secret.
About 250 gravestones at Douglass Memorial Cemetery will be temporarily relocated as a new stormwater improvement project gets underway next month.
Anticipated to begin Jan. 20, the project aims to replace hundreds of feet of aging stormwater pipes and regrade the historic Black cemetery’s drainage systems at 1421 Wilkes Street. Construction will prompt the temporary removal of about 250 gravestones, and will affect traffic along Wilkes Street, City Archaeologist Eleanor Breen told ALXnow.
Alexandria will provide an update later this month on stormwater solutions for the historic, and flood-prone, Douglass Memorial Cemetery (1421 Wilkes Street).
The city says that the cemetery, named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass, faces flooding and drainage problems, and that grave markers have been damaged. After two years of developing a plan to mitigate flooding and repair grave markers, the city will present an update on the project on Oct. 29 (Wednesday) from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Lloyd House (220 N. Washington Street).
Good Tuesday morning, Alexandria!
⛈️ Today’s weather: Expect a slight chance of showers from 2pm to 5pm, with the possibility of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. The day will be mostly sunny with a high of 83°F, accompanied by a west wind between 7 and 10 mph. Precipitation chances stand at 20%. The night will be mostly clear and temperatures will drop to approximately 61°F, while the northwest wind will range between 5 and 8 mph.
Fans of Apple’s new show Manhunt about the search for Abraham Lincoln’s assassin may be interested to learn that four Alexandria firemen who died during the 12-day search for John Wilkes Booth are buried in Alexandria National Cemetery.
The federal government initiated a massive search for Booth after Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865. The search included usage of the Black Diamond, a ship made up of more than a dozen employees of the Alexandria Fire Department working with the Army Quartermaster Corps, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Douglass Memorial Cemetery (1421 Wilkes Street) has long suffered flooding and neglect, but the City of Alexandria said plans to address issues at the cemetery will be presented at a meeting next week.
City employee Michael Johnson has been ringing alarm bells about the state of the cemetery for years. The cemetery has been a burial site for Black Alexandrians since 1827. Around 2,000 people were buried in the cemetery before burials stopped in 1974.
The base of the Appomattox statue has resurfaced atop Confederate graves in Alexandria.
More than two years ago, the Appomattox statue was removed from Old Town by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). The base was moved into Bethel Cemetery last summer, while the statute itself reportedly remains in storage.
There are nearly 200 years worth of stories buried at 1421 Wilkes Street.
The site started being used as a burial place for Black Alexandrians in 1827, but was officially established as the Douglass Memorial Cemetery in 1895. The last burial was in 1975.
