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.
Like the discovery of the ships in Old Town years ago, new development on the waterfront has turned up some fascinating local history.
In a release, the Office of Historic Alexandria said archeologists will offer tours of the newly uncovered Alexandria canal lock and basin near the 900 block of N. Pitt Street Old Town North. According to the release, historic maps showed a fourth waterfront lock at the north end of Old Town, part of the Alexandria Canal that opened in 1845 and linked up to the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal in Georgetown.
Like pumpkin picking and Thanksgiving dinner, the Alexandria Cider Festival is one of those great fall activities and it’s scheduled to return next month.
The Alexandria Cider Festival is a special cider tasting event complete with live music, tavern games, a food truck and more.
As part of an ongoing oral history project, the Office of Historic Alexandria is looking for people to help document the history of Black-Jewish relations in the city.
The project, a collaboration with Beth El Hebrew Congregation, will examine the social relations between the Black and Jewish communities in Alexandria during the Civil Rights era.
A new pop-up exhibit in Old Town will highlight one of the most exciting archeological discoveries in recent Alexandria history — a set of 18th-century ships buried to lay the foundation of the waterfront.
The new windowfront display at the corner of The Strand and Pioneer Mill Way opened in April and shows off-scale models of three 18th-century vessels excavated in 2018. On Friday, July 26, experts from Alexandria Archeology will be on-hand to talk about the building and burial of the ships.
As part of the 275th birthday celebrations this year, the Office of Historic Alexandria has launched a new exhibit in The Lyceum (201 S. Washington Street) dedicated to an oral history project.
The project is called Mapping Alexandria: Stories of a Changing City. It includes interviews with current and former residents to get first-hand accounts of Alexandria history and how its neighborhoods have evolved over time.
The Office of Historic Alexandria will celebrate Marquis de Lafayette, the acclaimed Hero of Two Worlds, with a concert and lecture marking 200 years since the city first threw its arms open to a hero of both the American and French revolutions.
Lafayette, a French nobleman and military officer, served under George Washington throughout the war and commanded Continental Army troops at the siege of Yorktown. Lafayette was also a prominent voice early in the French revolution, though he was later driven out of the country by more radical factions.
It’s about to get pricier to host events in buildings operated by the Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA).
On Wednesday, along with passing the fiscal year 2025 budget and considering other fee increases, City Council will consider OHA’s proposal to adjust renting out space at the following venues:
Didn’t get enough Irish cultural celebration at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade this weekend? A group of musicians are celebrating Irish folk music at a concert in Alexandria this weekend.
The Irish Breakfast Band — a group consisting of around 15 musicians with a variety of fiddles, flutes, hammered dulcimers and more — is playing at the Lyceum (201 S. Washington Street) this Saturday (March 9) from 7-8:30 p.m.
A new temporary exhibit at Freedom House Museum until April documents the life of a teenager enslaved at Washington Seminary in D.C.
“Searching for Truth in the Garden” reveals a story of Gabriel, a 13-year-old boy who was enslaved at the school — later renamed Gonzaga College High School — in 1829.
The Office of Historic Alexandria has debuted its annual holiday ornament: a solid brass decoration depicting Potomac Yard’s rail yard history.
The 3 x 2.75 inch ornament features a steam-powered locomotive in the foreground and the Capitol Building in the background. The ornament is $25.
