Driving Historic Route 1 through Virginia is like watching America's story unfold before your eyes.

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  African American Heritage Park

  Holland Lane, between Duke Street and Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA, 22314
  

  On June 17, 1995 the Norfolk Southern Corporation presented the park to the City of Alexandria. The park is part of a mixed-use Carlyle Development and a satellite site for the Alexandria Black History Museum. The memorial sculptures in the park are the creation of Washington, D.C. sculptor Jerome Meadows. The focal point of the park is a sculpture group of bronze trees called "Truths That Rise From the Roots Remembered." This formation acknowledges the contributions of African Americans to the growth of Alexandria. Other smaller sculptures throughout the park commemorate historic African American Neighborhoods and the people known and unknown buried on this site. A book stand in the park contains a visitors guide which identifies the names of African American citizens and sites etched on the sculptures.
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  Alexandria Black History Museum

  902 Wythe Street, Alexandria, VA, 22314
  Phone: (703) 838-4356

  The Museum, devoted to exhibiting local and regional history, incorporates the Robert H. Robinson Library as one of two exhibition galleries. The Robert H. Robinson Library was originally constructed in 1940 following a sit-in at the segregated Alexandria Library. The Reading Room, established in 1995, provides an environment for learning about the diversity of African American cultural traditions. A nine-acre green space and wetland, the Park offers a place for celebration, commemoration and quiet reflection. In 2006, the Alexandria Black History Museum opened the first phase of a three-part exhibition on African American life. Securing the Blessings of Liberty is an exhibition highlighting the African American experience in early Alexandria, Virginia. Phase I of the exhibition remains on view through 2009.
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  Alexandria Canal Tide Lock

  Montgomery Street at Potomac River, Arlington, VA, 22314
  

  The Tide Lock is the only remaining feature of the Alexandria Canal, built between 1834 and 1843 to link the Potomac River port with Georgetown. It was restored in 1985 in a riverfront development project. The Alexandria Canal Tide Lock is a reminder of the city’s role in American commercial history. The 7-mile-long canal joined Alexandria, a major 19th-century port, with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Georgetown, another vital commercial center and an early gateway to the western frontier. In operation until 1886, the Alexandria Canal was used largely for transporting coal, the primary industrial fuel of the day.
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  Alexandria City Hall and Market House

  301 King Street, Alexandria, VA, 22314
  Phone: (703) 838-4000

  Finished in 1873, the Alexandria City Hall and Market House replaced Benjamin H. Latrobe’s 1817 city hall, which burned in 1871. The present building is in the Second Empire style, a favorite Gilded Age motif. The combination of a town hall building with a surrounding market space protected by an arcade dated to the Middle Ages in Europe, and was often used in American cities until late in the 19th century. This is an unusually grand example, constructed in a high Victorian style. Architect Adolph Cluss was a communist and friend of Karl Marx who also designed the Smithsonian Institution’s Arts and Industries Building. Offices now fill the arcade.
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  Alexandria Historic District

  Downtown Alexandria, Alexandria, VA, 22314
  Phone: (703) 746-4000

  Founded in 1749, Alexandria quickly became an important inland port. Its prosperous inhabitants built handsome houses, churches, and commercial buildings, many of which now comprise the historic district’s core. As the most significant commercial center in northern Virginia, Alexandria flourished from its founding until after the Civil War. George Washington and Robert E. Lee were among its frequent visitors and residents. The buildings in the district include merchants’ mansions, slave-traders’ quarters, inns, banks, cultural centers, churches, and government offices. During the Civil War, the Unionist Restored Government of Virginia was located there.