George Washington Memorial Parkway ⓘ

The Jones Point Lighthouse is one of the last riverine lighthouses in the country and the only one still standing in the Chesapeake Bay area. Today it is the focal point of Jones Point Park and a clue to area's history as a busy commercial center and naval base.

The lighthouse operated from 1856-1926. It was designed as a navigational aid to help ships avoid shifting underwater shoals on the Potomac River and to support the growing maritime economies of Alexandria, Virginia and Washington, D.C. It had a fifth order Fresnel lens, the most advanced lens technology available in the 1800s, and produced a light beam which could be seen nine miles away. It was very useful to the hundreds of merchant, passenger, fishing, and naval vessels that traveled the Potomac each day.

The lighthouse usually had a keeper and an attendant appointed by the president to ensure year round operation. The lighthouse employees had many duties besides keeping the beacon lit 24 hours a day. They maintained the building itself and kept records of shipping traffic, weather, and tides. They worked long hours for low pay and rarely traveled far from their station.

However, keepers did get to live in the lighthouse for free. For unmarried keepers, the four-room lighthouse provided plenty of space, but for men with families the house could become very cramped. Benjamin Greenwood, the longest serving keeper, lived with his second wife and 11 of his 14 children in the building at one point.

While the lighthouse was physically separated from Alexandria in the 1800s, the keeper and his family were never short of visitors. As the city grew, its factories, rail yards, docks, and storehouses created a very prosperous, but also very noisy, smelly, and congested industrial center. The lighthouse's scenic shoreline made it a favorite recreation spot for Alexandrians. People would visit Jones Point each weekend to picnic, fish, swim, and relax along the banks of the Potomac.

In 1918 a massive shipyard was constructed at Jones Point to build ships for WWI. The shipyard obscured the lighthouse's beacon light, making it less useful as a navigational aid. In 1926 an automated light tower replaced the manned lighthouse to cut costs. The lighthouse was deeded to the Mount Vernon Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) who maintained the structure as a museum until 1936 when the Army Signal Corps built a classified communication facility on the former shipyard and closed it to the public. In 1953 the Army reopened Jones Point to public entry, but significant damage to the lighthouse from weather, tides, and vandalism had occurred, soldiers even using the building for target practice during WWII.

Lacking money to repair the lighthouse, the DAR worked with the National Park Service to establish a park on the site and restore the lighthouse. In 1964 Jones Point Park opened and for the past sixty years, Jones Point Park has been an area of recreational usage for thousands of people in the DMV.

Landscaped gardens and parks along the Alexandria waterfront give the impression that the area has always been the perfect spot to unwind. Yet this peaceful setting hides the history of a hectic port and booming factory town on the Potomac River. From Alexandria's beginnings in the 1700s until its transformation into a residential community after World War II, hustling docks, warehouses, and factories brought prosperity and symbolized the city's wealth and energy.

European colonists began establishing farms and plantations along this part of the Potomac River in the late 1600s. As the number of settlers grew, and they began to move inland, they needed good ports to allow them to export their farm products overseas and to import European manufactured goods. Tobacco warehouses, which were official inspection points for all tobacco exports, were established in several locations in Virginia. These warehouses often became the seed for larger communities as skilled artisans, merchants, and laborers were attracted by the jobs and business opportunities they offered.

Alexandria was one of these communities. It began as a small tobacco warehouse in 1732 and grew rapidly into a prosperous port town. The town's leading citizens understood that the multitude of shipping ports in the region created fierce commercial competition and that their community's success was tied to the wharves and warehouses along its waterfront. Alexandria's merchants built large docks that allowed Alexandria to eclipse its competitors. It became the shipping and manufacturing center of the Potomac River by the mid 1700s.

In 1779 the city became an official port of entry, a title which meant that foreign ships could complete their required customs inspections right there in Alexandria. The docks were now crowded with shipbuilders; small factories that produced naval stores and iron products; millers and distillers who refined corn, wheat, and sugar; and tanners and butchers who processed local livestock. These agricultural products and locally manufactured goods were exported to every state in the new nation and to the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia. During the late 1700s Alexandria was one of the ten busiest and wealthiest ports in the United States.

The Industrial Revolution brought new industries and technologies to the city in the early 1800s. Alexandria's businessmen constructed rail yards near the docks so they could easily transfer cargo between the ships and trains. This connected the city's waterfront to markets far inland while providing inland producers with markets overseas. To power the new steam ships, trains, and factories, daily coal barges floated tons of coal into the city from the Appalachian Mountains. Traffic on the Potomac increased so much that the federal government built the Jones Point Lighthouse to improve safety and navigation on the river.

The Civil War and Virginia's secession from the Union endangered Alexandria's prosperity. Its traditional economic links were suddenly severed, and opposing armies threatened to turn the city into a war zone. To protect Washington from attack, the Union army secured control of Alexandria in 1861. Because of its well developed docks and rail yards, Alexandria became a key military supply and communications center. Troops and war material for almost every major campaign in Virginia, as well as many of the assaults along the Confederacy's coastline, passed through the city's docks and railways. Wounded soldiers were ferried through the city for treatment or transport back home. When the Civil War ended in 1865 Alexandria's physical infrastructure was intact, but its peacetime commercial networks were in a shambles.

To survive, Alexandria once again invested in its waterfront. The city updated its shipbuilding and ship repair facilities. It continued to export local produce, wood, coal, and flour, but the introduction of electricity made new businesses, like ice making, possible. The city even created more room on the waterfront by filling in marshy areas.

In 1917 the United States entered World War I. It urgently needed to expand its navy and merchant fleet. Alexandria quickly shifted shipbuilding and manufacturing from peace- to wartime production. Warplanes and small warships known as "sub-chasers" were built in factories and shipyards along the Potomac River. Merchant vessels were built in the Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation's new shipyard at Jones Point. This facility launched the first all steel ships built in Alexandria.

When World War I ended in 1918 the government reduced, but did not end, its defense spending in Alexandria. The shipyards continued work on ship contracts until 1920, and the Navy constructed a torpedo factory on the waterfront. In 1936 the Army Signal Corps bought the deactivated shipyard at Jones Point and turned it into a radio receiving station responsible for handling all Army communications along the east coast. These ties to the military served the city well in World War II, when its docks and factories once again expanded to meet wartime needs.

Following World War II, Alexandria's economy struggled to adjust to changes in the national economy. Small river ports like Alexandria were becoming obsolete as international shipping switched to huge container ships. The city's leaders changed course and planned to develop Alexandria as a home for corporate offices and replace manufacturing with tourism. Groups of preservationists made sure that historic structures were saved. Local residents pressed for parks and recreational facilities.

The waterfront remained alive and vibrant through all these changes. The Mount Vernon Trail replaced the crowded, mud-spattered docks and provided residents and visitors with scenic views of the Potomac River and the nation's capital. Jones Point, once a raucous shipyard, was redeveloped as a park and historic site. The buildings and activity of the waterfront may have changed, but it is still a symbol of Alexandria's success.

Winding along the Potomac River, the George Washington Memorial Parkway protects far more than scenic views and historic landmarks. Across its 4,580 acres lies one of the region’s richest natural landscapes. The Parkway supports an exceptionally rich mix of wildlife and plant life across its forests, rivers, wetlands, and meadows. Hundreds of animal species live here, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and many smaller groups like crustaceans, mollusks, and insects. The parkway’s plant life is equally diverse, with thousands of documented species across trees, shrubs, wildflowers, grasses, and non-flowering plants, many of them native to the region. Some species are common and widely seen, while others are rare, seasonal, or found only in specific streams or habitats. The Parkway is home to at least 81 rare, threatened, or endangered plant and animal species in Virginia and Maryland. Hidden within rugged cliffs and forested ravines of the Potomac Gorge are habitats and ecosystems found in only a handful of locations. Alongside plants and animals, the parkway also supports complex communities of fungi and parasites that play important roles in nutrient cycling, decomposition, and maintaining ecological balance. Together, these interconnected habitats make the parkway one of the most biologically diverse natural areas in the region.

The parkway’s biodiversity is still revealing surprises. Scientists continue to document species that call these natural areas home, and some corners remain only partially studied. In 2011, researchers discovered a caddisfly new to science, Neophylax virginica , in Turkey Run Park. This is a reminder that even in one of the nation’s busiest metropolitan areas, nature still holds secrets waiting to be uncovered. Discover more about the Parkway’s remarkable natural resources through the articles on this page, and explore the many plant and animal species that call these landscapes home. With more than 20 park sites to visit, the Parkway offers countless opportunities to experience forests, rivers, wetlands, and wildlife in one of the richest natural areas surrounding the nation’s capital. Get outside, explore, and see what you can discover.

The vegetation of the George Washington Memorial Parkway includes a complex of upland, floodplain forest, and tidal marsh communities, as well as several rare vegetation types that occupy the bedrock terraces, exposed rocks, and frequently flooded river shores. Although disturbed, secondary forests are common in formerly cleared areas of the Park much of the contemporary forest consists of maturing second-growth stands that belong to the following ecological groups (Fleming et al. 2004): basic mesic forest, mesic mixed hardwood forest, acidic oak-hickory forest, oak/heath forest, and Piedmont / Mountain floodplain forest. Older-age stands (> 100 years) occur on ridges at both the northern and southern ends of Great Falls Park. Abrams and Copenheaver (1999) documented several white oak ( Quercus alba ) individuals more than 200 years old on the northern ridge.

The Park's complex topography, varied hydrological influences, and diversity of flood-influenced habitats fosters a corresponding diversity of vegetation types, some of them of significant conservation concern. On the bedrock terrace, the ancient oxbow west of the Old Carriage Road in Great Falls Park supports one of the largest known examples in Virginia of a Coastal Plain / Piedmont basic seepage swamp (G4G5/S2). On flats along the rocky rim of the terrace are two other rare forest communities that are scoured by periodic catastrophic floods: the Riverside Bedrock Terrace Pine Woodland (G1?S1), known only from the Potomac Gorge in Virginia and Maryland and the New River Gorge in West Virginia; and the Potomac River Bedrock Terrace Oak - Hickory Forest (G1G2S1), which is endemic to the Potomac Gorge. Rare communities of exposed rocks on the lower portions of the bedrock terrace, the gorge rim, and the river channel shelf include the Central Appalachian / Piedmont riverside prairie (G2G3S1) and the Potomac Gorge riverside outcrop barren (G2?S1). A substantial number of regionally rare plants are associated with these rocky habitats including Nantucket shadbush ( Amelanchier nantucketensis ), sterile sedge ( Carex straminea ), western sunflower ( Helianthus occidentalis ), and sticky goldenrock ( Solidago racemosa ) (Townsend 2004).

Turkey Run Park puts on one of the most spectacular spring wildflower shows found anywhere in the State of Virginia. The rich floodplain forest floors are swept in carpets of blue by the abundance of Eastern Bluebells ( Mertensia virginica ) and also provide habitat for many state listed rare species of herbaceous plants. Along the shores of the Potomac River, near the southern end of the Parkway, lies Dyke Marsh, one of the largest tidal marshes in the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The vegetation here is dominated by narrow-leaved cattails ( Typha angustifolia ), but also contains some large stands of arrow arum ( Peltandra virginica ), Sweet flag ( Acorus calamus ), yellow bullhead lily ( Nuphar luteum ), jewelweed ( Impatiens capensis ), river bullrush ( Scirpus fluviatilis ), and wild rice ( Zizania aquatica ).

Abrams, M.L. and C.A. Copenheaver. 1999. Temporal variation in species recruitment and dendroecology of an old-growth white oak forest in the Virginia Piedmont, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 124: 275-284.

Fleming, G.P., P.P. Coulling, K.D. Patterson, and K.M. McCoy. in prep. The natural communities of Virginia: classification of ecological community groups. Second approximation. Natural Heritage Technical Report 04-01. Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Natural Heritage, Richmond, VA.

Townsend, J.F. 2004. Natural Heritage resources of Virginia: rare plants. Natural Heritage Technical Report 04-06. Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Natural Heritage, Richmond, VA. 56 pp. plus appendices