Best Web Design in Alexandria, VA (2026)

Web Design for Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria is a historic independent city on the Potomac River just south of Washington, D.C., founded in 1749 as a colonial tobacco port. Its cobblestoned Old Town, once the childhood stomping grounds of George Washington and one of early America's busiest seaports, is now a genteel district of 18th-century architecture, waterfront dining, and the landmark George Washington Masonic Memorial.

AppWT works with Alexandria, VA businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Alexandria

Also known as. Old Town (for its historic core). Belhaven (early colonial-era name).

History. Established in 1749 by act of the Virginia House of Burgesses at a Potomac tobacco-warehouse site near Hunting Creek; some early maps labeled it 'Belhaven.' Named most likely for the Alexander family, which owned much of the land; formally incorporated as a town in 1779 during the American Revolution. From 1801 to 1847 Alexandria was part of the District of Columbia, then retroceded (returned) to Virginia amid economic decline and lack of voting rights; it became an independent city in 1870. By 1796 Alexandria was the seventh-largest port in the United States, but by the 1830s it had also become one of the country's largest centers of the domestic slave trade. It endured the longest continuous Union military occupation of any Confederate town during the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865. In 1939, attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker organized an early civil-rights sit-in at the segregated Alexandria Library.

Local economy. Federal government and defense are central: the Department of Defense's Mark Center and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office headquarters are major Alexandria employers. Tourism drives Old Town, whose historic streets, waterfront, restaurants, and museums attract large numbers of visitors. The city hosts a dense cluster of national nonprofits, associations, and professional-services firms drawn by proximity to Washington, D.C. Historically its wealth came from being a colonial-era tobacco and shipping port, one of the busiest in early America.

Culture and community. Gadsby's Tavern, a complex dating to the 1780s-90s, hosted John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington's Birthnight Balls, and now operates as a museum and restaurant. The 2000 film 'Remember the Titans' dramatizes the 1971 state championship run of Alexandria's T.C. Williams High School football team under coach Herman Boone. King Street is a mile-long dining and shopping spine, home to institutions like The Majestic (a fixture since 1932) and a range of Greek, French, Italian, and Southern restaurants. The Torpedo Factory Art Center, a former WWI/WWII munitions plant on the waterfront, has housed working artist studios and galleries since 1974. The city celebrates its heritage with events like the annual George Washington Birthday Parade in Old Town.

What makes Alexandria distinct. The first and southernmost boundary stone of Washington, D.C., laid in 1791, still sits at Alexandria's Jones Point. Alexandria was once part of Washington, D.C., but was handed back to Virginia in the 1846-1847 retrocession. When the historic ballroom woodwork of Gadsby's Tavern was sold to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Met inadvertently preserved the original 18th-century room, now displayed there. A 1953 city ordinance required new north-south streets to be named after Confederate officers, a rule not repealed until 2014. Old Town's 1971 championship football team inspired the Disney film 'Remember the Titans.'

Alexandria Landmarks and Local Life

• George Washington Masonic National Memorial (dedicated 1932) - a towering hilltop landmark modeled on the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria
• Old Town Alexandria Historic District - designated in 1946 as one of the earliest historic districts in the United States
• Torpedo Factory Art Center on the Potomac waterfront.
• Gadsby's Tavern Museum on North Royal Street.
• Jones Point - site of the original 1791 south cornerstone boundary marker of Washington, D.C
• Christ Church - an 18th-century Episcopal church attended by George Washington and Robert E. Lee