BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Alexandria -- Torpedo Factory Art Center -- Archeological Center

VA -- Alexandria -- Torpedo Factory Art Center -- Archeological Center:

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[1] TORPAC_140927_001.JPG	[2] TORPAC_140927_007.JPG	[3] TORPAC_140927_010.JPG
[4] TORPAC_140927_014.JPG	[5] TORPAC_140927_018.JPG	[6] TORPAC_140927_023.JPG
[7] TORPAC_140927_029.JPG	[8] TORPAC_140927_032.JPG	[9] TORPAC_140927_040.JPG
[10] TORPAC_140927_045.JPG	[11] TORPAC_140927_047.JPG	[12] TORPAC_140927_049.JPG
[13] TORPAC_140927_053.JPG	[14] TORPAC_140927_055.JPG	[15] TORPAC_140927_058.JPG
[16] TORPAC_140927_061.JPG	[17] TORPAC_140927_069.JPG	[18] TORPAC_140927_072.JPG
[19] TORPAC_140927_078.JPG	[20] TORPAC_140927_082.JPG	[21] TORPAC_140927_085.JPG
[22] TORPAC_140927_087.JPG	[23] TORPAC_140927_090.JPG	[24] TORPAC_140927_093.JPG
[25] TORPAC_140927_099.JPG	[26] TORPAC_140927_101.JPG	[27] TORPAC_140927_104.JPG
[28] TORPAC_140927_110.JPG	[29] TORPAC_140927_115.JPG	[30] TORPAC_140927_119.JPG
[31] TORPAC_140927_122.JPG	[32] TORPAC_140927_127.JPG	[33] TORPAC_140927_131.JPG
[34] TORPAC_140927_134.JPG	[35] TORPAC_140927_137.JPG	[36] TORPAC_140927_139.JPG
[37] TORPAC_140927_141.JPG	[38] TORPAC_140927_144.JPG	[39] TORPAC_140927_148.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. TORPAC_140927_001.JPG: The Lee Street Site: Layers of Time: Preserved on the Lee Street Site was a cross-section of Alexandria's history from its founding in 1749 into the 20th century. Eighteenth-century wharves remained intact below remnants of a bakery, taverns and residences which had sprung up oh the bustling waterfront of the international port in the early 19th century. Evidence for use of the site as a hospital support facility by the Union Army served as a reminder of the huge influx of soldiers during the Civil War. Protected first by the shallow foundations of late 19th/early 20th-century warehouses and later by the paved surface of the parking lot, these layers of time survived to yield their secrets to archaeologists and the community in 1997, prior to construction of townhouses and an underground parking garage.
2. TORPAC_140927_007.JPG: The Lee Street Site in the 18th century: The Changing Waterfront: Alexandria was founded in 1749 on a bluff above a crescent-shaped bay. The shoreline was more than a block inland from where you are now standing, near Lee Street, originally called Water Street. English and Scottish merchants involved in the area's thriving tobacco economy constructed wharves into the bay to increase international trade. Before long the harbor filled with silt, and cargo-laden sailing ships were unable to reach the wharves. The town responded by cutting down the bluffs to fill between the wharves, extending the shoreline outward into the channel. By 1784, Union Street was laid out and the Lee Street block emerged from the bay. Within two decades, this area was filled with residences, taverns, and businesses and teeming with seaport activity.
3. TORPAC_140927_014.JPG: The Lee Street Site in the 19th century: The Jamieson-Hill Bakery: In the early 1800s, the harbor was filled with ships and the waterfront was lined with warehouses, taverns and seaport industries. Alexandria had many bakeries which made hardy sea biscuits, also known as hard tack or ship's bread, to sustain the sailors on their travels. Built on a corner of Lee Street Site in 1832, the Jamieson Bakery was renowned for the quality of its biscuits for more than 30 years. By 1850, a 12 horse-power steam engine joined substantial brick ovens in the three-story bakery. George Hill operated the bakery after the Civil War and added state-of-the-art machinery. Eventually he expanded the business across Lee Street, into buildings which still stand today.
4. TORPAC_140927_018.JPG: A Community Digs Its Past: The Lee Street Site: As plans were made in 1997 for construction on the Lee Street Site near the City's waterfront, the Alexandria community came together to insure that the past would not be forgotten. The site had the potential to provide insight into the development of the waterfront as Alexandria evolved from a tobacco inspection station to a bustling seaport to the residential/commercial community of today. City officials and archaeologists, the developer, archaeological consultants, a conservator, numerous volunteers, students and local businesses all contributed to excavation and study of the site so that information about the City's history could be recovered prior to development. Archaeologists and the community worked together to preserve the artifacts and to create a permanent record of the early foundations, even as the ruins themselves were replaced by townhouses and a garage.
5. TORPAC_140927_023.JPG: Clovis Paleoindian, ca. 13,000 years ago Freedmen's Cemetery Site
6. TORPAC_140927_029.JPG: (Scientific American article, November 2011) A Precocious Peopling: In the traditional view of human colonization of the Americas, big-game hunters from Asia -- the so-called Clovis people -- swept quickly across a now submerged landmass called Beringia into North America around 13,000 years ago and hastened south into warmer climes. Over the past decade, however, evidence against this "Clovis First" scenario has mounted. The latest geologic and archaeological research indicates that humans entered the New World thousands of years before the Clovis people left behind their distinctive stone tools and suggests two possible migration paths: a coastal route and an early ice-free corridor. Key Find: Santa Rosa Island, Calif. Distinctive, Christmas tree-shaped stone points found at Santa Rosa Island date to 11,800 years ago and resemble stone tools from East Asia that date to 15,000 years ago, hinting at an early migration route along the northern Pacific Rim. Land Route: Ice-Free Corridor: According to the Clovis First model, the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets did not part ways until 13,000 years ago, thus barring a pre-Clovis overland migration into the Americas. But fresh geologic data indicate that the corridor opened by 15,000 years ago. Travelers along this route may have hunted birds and brought dogs with them to carry their gear. Trekking 16 kilometers a day, the migrants could have reached the end of the corridor in four months. Famous Assemblage: Clovis, N.M. In the 1930s discoveries at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, N.M. and other sites yielded long, sturdy, fluted spearpoints for hunting large-game animals such as woolly mammoths. For years these Clovis points and other artifacts had the distinction of being the oldest in the New World and formed the basis of the Clovis First model of the peopling of the Americas.
7. TORPAC_140927_032.JPG: Archaeologists discover 13,000-year-old artifact
8. TORPAC_140927_040.JPG: Peeps An Event of Epeep Proportions Deaths of Union Col. Elmer Ellsworth and Secessionist James Jackson May 24, 1861 at Marshall House, Alexandria, Virginia.
9. TORPAC_140927_049.JPG: Alexandria, Virginia 1760-1775 Artist Elizabeth Luallen created this drawing based on research conducted by Alexandria archaeology staff and volunteers.
10. TORPAC_140927_055.JPG: Original ramrod and barrel
11. TORPAC_140927_058.JPG: Finding the Musket: The musket was found in the privy with its muzzle down, fractured at the wrist. The waterlogged wood was well preserved, but stained black from the privy. The metal components were badly corroded. An undamaged flint and leather cushion were still clamped in the jaws of the hammer which was frozen in the firing position. Priming powder was still in the pan, the x-rays revealed a .69 caliber musket ball with wadding and a powder charge in the barrel. However, the mainspring, which snapped the hammer and flint against the frizzen to ignite the powder, was fractured. The unserviceable musket was discarded in the privy along with other household trash.
12. TORPAC_140927_061.JPG: The Wickham Musket: Alexandria Archaeology discovered this musket during excavations on the Courthouse Site in 1978. The gun, cocked and loaded, was thrown into the backyard privy of a house at 106 S. St. Asaph Street around the 1860s. The musket was manufactured by Marine T. Wickham sometime between 1822 and 1934. Wickham, a former Master Armorer at the Harpers Ferry National Armory, produced muskets under contract for the government at his Philadelphia factory.
13. TORPAC_140927_082.JPG: Civil War Crimean Oven Diorama
14. TORPAC_140927_090.JPG: A leather shoe recovered from the Civil War privy
15. TORPAC_140927_101.JPG: The Steps of Archaeology: Historical Research: Discovering the Tavern: Study of the Lee Street Site began long before the first shovelful of dirt was screened, with a review of historic maps and documents. Near the end of the dig, archaeologists uncovered the brick foundations of a small structure. The City's Research Historian searched the City's archives, courthouse and libraries to reveal the history of this building and others on the Lee Street Site. The first tavern license was issued for this building by 1815. Tax records show that it was leased to tavern keeper John Gemeny in 1819. He and John Mannery operated one of several taverns along Union Street until 1835. It was known as the Mt. Vernon Tavern in the 1850s.
16. TORPAC_140927_110.JPG: Cartridge Box hardware
17. TORPAC_140927_115.JPG: From the Collections: Discoveries from a Civil War Privy: In 1997, just before the excavation of the Lee Street Site, another Civil War privy was found at the U.S. Military Railroad (USMRR) Headquarters at the corner of Duke and Henry Streets. The Orange & Alexandria Railroad Offices and rail yards were developed into the headquarters of the USMRR by the Construction Corps, which was composed largely of "Contraband," a term used for African Americans who had escaped slavery. The Construction Corps enlarged the roundhouse and added a conical roof and cupola, and built quarters, mess halls, a powder magazine, and a stockade around the perimeter.
18. TORPAC_140927_119.JPG: Conjectural model of a Civil War privy
19. TORPAC_140927_131.JPG: The Lee Street Site in the Civil War: The U.S. Military Hospital Support Complex: Alexandria was captured by federal forces the day after Virginia seceded from the United States. Alexandria's landscape and that of the Lee Street Site changed dramatically under military occupation. The town became a major supply depot, a busy thoroughfare for troops moving to and from the field of battle, and a hospital and convalescent center for tens of thousands of Union soldiers. The Jamieson Bakery was commissioned to make sea biscuits for the U.S. Navy. The rest of the site became a support complex for the 34 hospitals in and around Alexandria. Federal troops constructed temporary frame buildings including a stable, supply shed, office, harness shop, mess house, guard house, and sinks (better known as outhouses or privies).
20. TORPAC_140927_134.JPG: Union Bullseye Canteen, Tin Cap, and "Shield and Clamped Hands" flask
21. TORPAC_140927_137.JPG: Horse tack. Small leather cuttings found in the privy may be scraps from a hardness shop which was part of the hospital support complex.
Wikipedia Description: Torpedo Factory Art Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Torpedo Factory Art Center is an art center located on the waterfront of the Potomac River at 105 North Union Street in the Old Town of Alexandria, Virginia, United States. Historically it was literally a former torpedo factory and munitions storage site.

It houses more 82 artists' studios, 6 galleries and two workshops, with some 165 professional visual artists who produce a diversity of artwork, ranging from painting, ceramics, photography, jewelry, stained glass, fiber, printmaking, and sculpture. The six galleries located at the Torpedo Factory include the Target Gallery, The Art League Gallery, Enamelists Gallery, the Multiple Exposures Gallery which specializes in photography, the Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery and the Scope Gallery which specializes in ceramics.

The centre attracts around 500,000 visitors annually.

History:

On November 12, 1918, the U.S. Navy began constructing a torpedo factory in Alexandria, named the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station. Over the next five years it was responsible for the manufacture and maintenance of torpedoes and subsequently served as a munitions storage area until World War II. As the demand for weapons dramatically increased during the war it resumed production activity and the factory was substantially expanded with ten new buildings. A green Mark XIV torpedo was manufactured in the factory in 1945, which is still on display.

After World War II, production ceased and is was used throughout the 1950s and 1960s by the Smithsonian institution who stored art and paleaontological items there and by Congress for storing documents. Then in 1969, the President of the Art League, Marian Van Landingham proposed to adapt the building into studios for working artists and following the approval of the Commission, the factory was purchased by the City of Alexandria from the Federal Government. Large-scale renovation began in the May of 1974 and the redevelopment team worked arduously through the summer, enabling the new centre to formally open on September 15, 1974. From 1982 to 1983, the building underwent further renovation in compliance with City's waterfront development plan and was entirely gutted and rebuilt with a new ventilation system and central heating. It formally reopened on May 20, 1983.
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