Historic Alexandria is honored to announce the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum has been selected as a new National Historic Landmark. Revealed on January 13, 2021, the Secretary of the Interior designated 21 new and 2 updated National Historic Landmarks.

While our lives today look different than generations past, winter still brings a common feeling of change. Even this year, when COVID 19 is changing much of what we do, colder days, longer nights, and holiday.

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.

Explore the Alexandria Black History Museum’s events and activities to celebrate Black History Month! Join us virtually for storytime, lectures, a symposium, a concert, the City’s MLK program, or take a trip outside and visit sites like the African American Heritage Park and the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery.

Following the tragic murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, the Alexandria Black History Museum put out a call to the community to help us to document the legacy of the local community’s response to this tragedy and the wave of peaceful protests and vigils that followed. These donations form the basis of the Museum’s new Black Lives Remembered Collection. View items from the collection here. New submissions are still received here.

Missed the 48th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Program on January 15? Watch the video, with new remarks by Senator Mark Warner, this year’s celebration features remarks by Mayor Justin Wilson, a keynote address by former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder, and more.

The Poster Contest goes virtual for 2021. Due to Covid-19 and the desire to keep our children and our community healthy and safe, there will be no ceremony or exhibit at Alexandria City Hall this year. Instead, the student posters are presented on this page.

The Alexandria Black History Museum’s The Moss Kendrix Collection was a 2020 honoree in the Virginia Association of Museums’ Top 10 Endangered Artifacts.

The Parker-Gray School provided African American children with comprehensive education at a time when segregation and lack of resources, teachers, and facilities threatened what is now understood as a fundamental right of every child. On the 100th anniversary of Alexandria’s Parker-Gray High School, the City of Alexandria joined the Alexandria African-American Hall of Fame and Parker-Gray Alumni in commemorating this historical legacy. 

Alexandria’s history offers a local lens to explore events that have changed the nation. Learners of all ages can explore Alexandria’s history through online and on-site offerings designed by Museum Educators and Curators. Historic Alexandria offers educators the opportunity to reinforce their teaching with hands-on experiences, field trips, kits, and online resources.

We are interested in hearing your story.. If you currently live, work, or volunteer with the City of Alexandria, or have done so in the past, you can participate in the Historic Alexandria Oral History Program. We are currently conducting interviews virtually. Fill out our survey if you would like to share your story.

The shoreline of the Potomac River where Alexandria is located today was inhabited for centuries, long before the modern community was founded. When Captain John Smith neared this point in 1608, he met at least two groups of indigenous peoples, who were among the thousands of Native Americans who inhabited the region and enjoyed its rich resources of fish and game. 

Alexandria’s African American history is told through an online StoryMap and can be experienced in-home on your computer or on your smartphone as you walk the trail along the Potomac River. The walking trail lasts about 45 minutes at a leisurely pace. The webpage presents more in-depth information about the stops highlighted in the StoryMap.

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 jurisdictions to claim and install a copy of their monument. The City of Alexandria is committed to claiming Alexandria’s monument in partnership with EJI.

Peaceful vigils, protests and other events took place in Alexandria during the first week in June, following the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd. Recognizing the importance of this moment in history, the Office of Historic Alexandria invites the community to share signs, t-shirts, flyers, photographs, journals, personal stories, and artifacts that document local vigils and protests. 

As we experience this unprecedented time in the history of our town and the world, the Office of Historic Alexandria is embarking on a project to record our City’s response by conducting oral histories and collecting select memories, objects and documents from across the Alexandria community.

Miss visiting your favorite Historic Alexandria sites? Looking for some fun historic activities to share with your kids at home? Let our staff bring history virtually to you! 

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.

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.

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.

As redevelopment takes place along the waterfront, archaeologists are learning more about the city’s maritime past. Learn about the discovery of four 18th-century ships, wharves and warehouses, and the current effort to record the ship timbers with 3D scanning, and consider a generous donation to the Save Our Ships Fund.

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. The public is invited to attend meetings of the Committee, announced on the  Calendar of Events. The latest design documents are posted here. Read the Fort Ward Interagency Annual Report for FY 2020.

Generations of passengers have embarked on journeys and were welcomed home at the Alexandria Union Station. Built in 1905, the station is on the National Register of Historic Places. Stop by the station to see interpretive exhibits, or to take the train.

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.

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.