Phoenix Mill (Virginia)

Last updated
Phoenix Mill in the mid-1800s Phoenix Mill, Alexandria, VA, corner bw (mid-1800s).jpg
Phoenix Mill in the mid-1800s

Phoenix Mill (also named Dominion Mill and Brick Water Mill) is a historic gristmill built in 1801 and the last remaining gristmill building in Alexandria, Virginia. It was built on the same site as an earlier mill, built sometime between 1770 and 1789, with current best research putting it around 1776, [1] that was destroyed in a fire. [2]

William Hartshorne owned the mill when it burned down and rebuilt it as a four-story mill with four millstones. In 1812 it was offered up for auction as part of the larger Strawberry Hill farm and sold in 1813. [3] [2] It primarily milled wheat but also advertised having plaster available for sale in 1819. [4]

It was sold for $9,000 in 1854 when it was advertised, with the name Brick Water Mill, as having four burrs and the capacity "to grind 100 barrels of flour per day". [5] By 1865 it had been renamed Dominion Mill. [2] By 1930 it had stopped operating. [2]

As of 2023, it is unoccupied and was most recently occupied by the Flippo Construction company, and the land it sits on is 2.0 acres (0.81 ha) in size. The Alexandria Police Department opened a new headquarters near the site in 2011, and a self-storage facility is immediately adjoining the mill's site. As part of the self-storage facility development, in 2017, the development company and the city of Alexandria conducted a study and archaeological assessment of the property. As part of potential highspeed rail on the neighboring railway, its historical significance was evaluated in a 2018 report and recommended the site as likely eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. No known stone mills survive in Alexandria's original boundaries, and Phoenix Mill is the only such mill in the current Alexandria after Alexandria annexed the land. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirlington, Arlington, Virginia</span> Human settlement in Arlington County, Virginia, United States of America

Shirlington is an unincorporated urban area, officially called an "urban village", in the southern part of Arlington County, Virginia, United States, adjacent to the Fairlington area. The word "Shirlington" is a combination of "Shirley" and "Arlington".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad</span> Railroad company in Virginia, later part of CSX

The Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad was a railroad connecting Richmond, Virginia, to Washington, D.C. The track is now the RF&P Subdivision of the CSX Transportation system; the original corporation is no longer a railroad company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richmond Staples Mill Road station</span> Railway station in Virginia

The Richmond Staples Mill Road Amtrak station is located in unincorporated Henrico County, about 5 miles (8 km) north of downtown Richmond. The station was designed by David Volkert and Associates, and was built in 1975 as a replacement for Main Street Station in downtown Richmond, which had been heavily damaged by flooding from Hurricane Agnes. At its opening, it also inherited trains that had called at Richmond's other former union station, Broad Street Station, with a bus connection to the short-lived Richmond–Ellerson Street Station. Although limited Amtrak service returned to Main Street Station in December 2003, Staples Mill Road remains the primary rail station for the Richmond area, and all Richmond trains make a stop there. Richmond Main Street Station only sees trains that terminate there or at Newport News, since the other trains bypass downtown Richmond to the west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor</span> Proposed passenger rail project in the United States

The Southeast Corridor (SEC) is a proposed passenger rail transportation project in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States to extend high-speed passenger rail services from the current southern terminus of the Northeast Corridor in Washington, D.C.. Routes would extend south via Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, with a spur to Norfolk in Virginia's Hampton Roads region; the mainline would continue south to Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Since the corridor was first established in 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has extended it further to Atlanta, Georgia and Macon, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; and Birmingham, Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington and Old Dominion Railroad</span> Defunct railroad in Virginia, United States

The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia, United States. The railroad was a successor to the bankrupt Washington and Old Dominion Railway and to several earlier railroads, the first of which began operating in 1859. The railroad closed in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park</span>

The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a linear regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail, an asphalt-surfaced paved rail trail that runs through densely populated urban and suburban communities as well as through rural areas. Most of the trail travels on top of the rail bed of the former Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which closed in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potomac Yard</span> Neighborhood in Northern Virginia

Potomac Yard is a neighborhood in Northern Virginia that straddles southeastern Arlington County and northeastern Alexandria, Virginia, located principally in the area between U.S. Route 1 and the Washington Metro Blue Line /Yellow Line tracks. The area was home to what was once one of the busiest rail yards on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The "Potomac Yard" name is also used to refer to several developments in the area, especially the Potomac Yard Center power center and a Washington Metro station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Four Mile Run</span> Stream in Virginia

Four Mile Run is a 9.4-mile-long (15.1 km) stream in Northern Virginia that starts near Interstate 66, at Gordon Avenue in Fairfax County and proceeds southeast through Falls Church to Arlington County in the U.S. state of Virginia. Most of the stretch is parkland and is paralleled by two paved non-motorized transport and recreational trails, the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Trail and the Four Mile Run Trail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Virginia</span>

Buildings, sites, districts, and objects in Virginia listed on the National Register of Historic Places:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Virginia trolleys</span> Network of electronic passenger rails

The Northern Virginia trolleys were the network of electric passenger rails that moved people around the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., from 1892 to 1941. They consisted of as many as three separate companies connecting Rosslyn, Great Falls, Bluemont, Mount Vernon, Fairfax City, Camp Humphries and Nauck to Washington, D.C., on six different lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monumental Church</span> Former Episcopal church and national landmark in Richmond, Virginia, United States

Monumental Church is a former Episcopal church at 1224 E. Broad Street between N. 12th and College streets in Richmond, Virginia. Designed by architect Robert Mills, it is one of America's earliest and most distinctive Greek Revival churches. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is located in the Court End historic district.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominion Energy</span> American energy company

Dominion Energy, Inc., commonly referred to as Dominion, is an American power and energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and supplies natural gas to parts of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Dominion also has generation facilities in Indiana, Illinois, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Washington's Gristmill</span> United States historic place

George Washington's Gristmill was part of the original Mount Vernon plantation, constructed during the lifetime of the United States' first president. The original structure was destroyed about 1850. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association have reconstructed the gristmill and the adjacent distillery. The reconstructed buildings are located at their original site three miles (4.8 km) west of the Mount Vernon mansion near Woodlawn Plantation in the Mont Vernon area of Fairfax County. Because the reconstructed buildings embody the distinctive characteristics of late eighteenth century methods of production and are of importance to the history of Virginia, the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places despite the fact that the buildings are not original.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colross</span> Georgian mansion in Princeton, New Jersey

Colross is a Georgian style mansion built around 1800 as the center of a large plantation in what is now the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia, and moved circa 1930 to Princeton, New Jersey, where it is currently the administration building of Princeton Day School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolf Run Shoals</span> Occoquan River crossing point

Wolf Run Shoals was an important crossing point on the Occoquan River in northern Virginia between Alexandria and Richmond during the 18th and 19th centuries. It consisted of three islands and a mill, now submerged under the Occoquan due to higher water levels following damming for flood control, water supply, and power generation. It is located near the unincorporated communities of Butts Corner, Makleys Corner, and Farrs Corner in southern Fairfax County, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground</span> Historic African American cemetery in Richmond, Virginia

The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground was established by the city of Richmond, Virginia, for the interment of free people of color, and the enslaved. The heart of this now invisible burying ground is located at 1305 N 5th St.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District</span> Historic hospital-cemetery complex in Virginia, U.S.

The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District, located in the city of Richmond, Virginia, is a significant example of a municipal almshouse-public hospital-cemetery complex of the sort that arose in the period of the New Republic following disestablishment of the Anglican Church. The District illustrates changing social and racial relationships in Richmond through the New Republic, Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow/Lost Cause eras of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District occupies 43 acres (17 ha) of land bounded to the south by E. Bates Street, to the north by the northern limit of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority right-of-way at the southern margin of the Bacon's Quarter Branch valley, to the west by 2nd Street, and to the east by the historic edge of the City property at the former location of Shockoe Creek. The District encompasses most of a 28.5-acre (11.5 ha) tract acquired by the city of Richmond in 1799 to fulfill several municipal functions, along with later additions to this original tract.

References

  1. DC2RVA Project Team (July 2016). "Architectural Reconnaissance Survey for the Washington, D.C. to Richmond, Virginia High Speed Rail Project Alexandria to Franconia (AFFR) Segment" (PDF). vapassengerrailauthority.org. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates (October 2017). "Documentary Study and Archeological Evaluation for 3640 Wheeler Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia" (PDF). media.alexandriava.gov. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  3. "Valuable Farm and Mill for Sale". Alexandria Gazette. Alexandria, Virginia. 1812-08-04. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  4. "Phoenix Mill". Alexandria Gazette. Alexandria, Virginia. 1819-04-01. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  5. "Brick Water Mill purchase". The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. 1853-02-02. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-07-30.
  6. "Architectural Intensive Investigations for the Washington, D.C. to Richmond Southeast High Speed Rail (DC2RVA) Project: APPENDIX D5 ARCHITECTURAL INTENSIVE INVESTIGATIONS" (PDF). DC2RVA Project Team. April 2018.

38°48′25.52″N77°5′38.2″W / 38.8070889°N 77.093944°W / 38.8070889; -77.093944