This week in Historic Alexandria, enjoy the many exhibits, public programs and special events offered by our city’s great museums and historic sites! Information on daily calendar listings, museum hours, local history and much more is included in this e-newsletter, updated each week on this webpage or delivered to your in-box. To subscribe to this and other information from the City of Alexandria, create an e-news account and select your notifications of interest here.

Special Holiday events include Museum Shop Sunday, Open Houses, Kwanzaa Workshop, Civil War Christmas in Camp, Candlelight Tours and Colonial Handbell Ringers. 

Many of the City's premier historic sites are owned and operated by the City of Alexandria and fall under the administration of the Office of Historic Alexandria, the department of City government charged with the conservation, interpretation and promotion of these links to the past. Find out more about each of our museums and historic sites.

Explore centuries of human history. See a 13,000-year-old Clovis point, an 18th-century apothecary, a restored Civil War fort, a 1940s segregated library, and more. See all the information you need to plan a visit to the Historic Alexandria museums. Before your visit, be sure to print an eSavings Coupon.

EYA, LLC and City of Alexandria Archaeology received the national “Culture Builds Community Award,” presented by Partners for Livable Communities (Partners), a Washington-based nonprofit, for their unique partnership to preserve and highlight the historic importance of the Old Town Alexandria waterfront.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama includes over 800 steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place. Their Community Remembrance Project invites counties to claim and install a copy of their monument. One monument will be claimed by the City of Alexandria in 2019.

The Museum at 1315 Duke Street is open Saturday and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. Admission is $5 per person. Tickets can be purchased at the door. The building is currently owned by the Northern Virginia Urban League and together with the Office of Historic Alexandria, we invite you to visit the museum in this historic reminder of slavery.

Join us in Old Town Alexandria each second Friday of the month for a concert sponsored by The Folklore Society of Greater Washington (FSGW) and The Office of Historic Alexandria. All concerts run from 6-8 p.m. Suggested donation for the musicians, light refreshments available, and a cash bar.

Archaeologists working at the Robinson Landing site discovered the remains of three 18th-century ships, along with wharves, warehouses and more. Learn about these latest finds and about earlier nautical discoveries, including another ship, from the nearby Indigo Hotel site.

The hull of the 18th-century ship found in 2015 at the Hotel Indigo construction site is undergoing conservation at Texas A&M University's Conservation Research Laboratory. Please make a generous donation to the Save Our Ship Conservation Fund to ensure the preservation of the fragile wood timbers. 

Help us preserve two important fire-fighting vehicles on display at Friendship Firehouse Museum: The Rodgers Suction Engine, built in 1851, and the Prettyman Hose Carriage, built in Alexandria in 1858.

Reinforce your teaching with hands-on experiences, field trips, lectures, educational kits and other resources. Programs are designed to foster interest in the history and culture of Alexandria from colonial times to the present. Schedule tours and programs for school groups, scout groups, home-school families, and camps, as well as for adults.

Looking for something fun for your family to do in Historic Alexandria? With  living history programs, festivals, teas, and more, there is something for every age! Make your child's birthday party a historic occasion, send your kid to Summer Camp, or check the Calendar of Events to plan your family fun.

What happened in Alexandria on today's date, or tomorrow, or on your birthday? See today's historical events, or search for another date. These daily events in Alexandria's history were first printed in "This Week in Historic Alexandria." 

Out of the Attic, featuring historical photographs of Alexandria, is a column produced by the Office of Historic Alexandria and published weekly in the Alexandria Times. An archive of articles dating back to the column's beginning in 2007 appears here with permission of the newspaper. Sort or search the index to learn about places or topics of interest.

The City of Alexandria’s wayfinding signage system helps people find their way around the city. Take a look at the new map and history panel “mini-kiosks” in Old Town, from the Masonic Temple on Shuter's Hill to the waterfront. Read the full text of the history panels here.

Enjoy a variety of walking and bike tours, listen to podcasts, explore Alexandria's Civil War heritage with a free iPhone app, go on a scavenger hunt, or learn about Trail Signs and the Alexandria Heritage Trail. For a short preview, check out Visit Alexandria 360, a virtual tour.

Visit the Museum Store at the Alexandria History Museum at The Lyceum (201 S. Washington Street) and online at The Alexandria Shop. The shop offers great gift ideas, a wide variety of Alexandria-related merchandise and the very best selections from all the Historic Alexandria museum stores. Your purchases support programming at Historic Alexandria's museums. 

The goal of this project is to expand interpretation in Fort Ward Park to include the full range of its history, especially including the African American experience and the post-Civil War Fort community. Fort Ward's Civil War history will remain a core theme, but new elements will explore the legacy of that pivotal era. A draft interpretive plan and design package were shared with the Fort Ward Interpretive Committee and the community on September 13. The public is invited to attend meetings of the Committee, announced on the Calendar of Events.