Market Square

Alexandria's Market Square was established only a few years after the town was founded in 1749 on a central block beside City Hall, at the intersection of Cameron and North Fairfax Streets, then one of the most important locations in Northern Virginia. It began as a rough field where housewares, foodstuffs, animals, meat, and local farm products were sold to townspeople and visitors from the surrounding countryside, and it also served as a place for the sale of African slaves imported through global trade and for the mustering of local militias. By the late 18th century, permanent buildings began to rise around the square, creating a prime setting for shops, taverns, and warehouses, often with residences for their owners. By the start of the Civil War, buildings enclosed the block fronts and the marketplace had shrunk to an interior courtyard reached by Sharpskin Alley between North Royal and North Fairfax Streets and by Market Alley linking Sharpskin to King Street, while additional open stalls stood behind City Hall. Commercial activity flourished there into the mid-20th century as Alexandria remained Northern Virginia's leading urban center, and the area also housed the Friendship Fire Company before its move to South Alfred Street in 1855. In the 1950s, suburban growth contributed to the decline of downtown Alexandria, and in the following decade an urban renewal project demolished dozens of buildings to reopen the public square as a brick plaza with a fountain above a multi-level parking garage. The Old Town Farmers' Market has operated there year round on Saturday mornings for more than 260 years, with George Washington sending produce from Mount Vernon to be sold there, making it the country's oldest farmers' market held continuously at the same site; today it continues as a link to the past, with more than 70 vendors in peak season selling foods, flowers, plants, soaps, fabric art, and paintings.

Alexandria, Virginia · United States