Braddock Road (Alexandria, Virginia)

Last updated March 16, 2019

Braddock Road in the City of Alexandria runs northwestward from West Street near the Braddock Road Metro station to the Alexandria campus of the Northern Virginia Community College, just beyond Beauregard Street. About 2 miles (3.2 km) west, unconnected, another Braddock Road (SR 620) begins in Fairfax County at Columbia Pike near Lake Barcroft.

Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 139,966, and in 2016, the population was estimated to be 155,810. Located along the western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 7 miles (11 km) south of downtown Washington, D.C.

Braddock Road is an island-platformed Washington Metro station in Alexandria, Virginia, United States. The station was opened on December 17, 1983, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Providing service for both the Blue and Yellow Lines, the station is located at Braddock Road and West Street. Access to the platform is provided by one pair of escalators and one elevator.

Northern Virginia Community College is a public community college composed of six campuses and four centers in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.. NOVA is the second largest multi-campus community college in the United States and the largest educational institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

History

Braddock Road was originally composed of paths established by the Native American inhabitants of Northern Virginia. Later, British colonialists and Virginian governments developed and improved the paths into what became known as "Braddock's Road."

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. The term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaska Natives, while Native Americans are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities. Native Hawaiians are not counted as Native Americans by the US Census, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander".

Colonial and revolutionary era

Civil War

During the American Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops traversed Braddock Road during various battles in Fairfax County and other parts of Northern Virginia.

The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy and the South, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.

External links

The Many Lives of Braddock Road, from The Roads of Northern Virginia

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