Alexander Island and the District of Columbia-Virginia Boundary Commission
When Alexandria County was retroceded to Virginia in the 1840s, no effort was made to draw a boundary line between the County and the remaining portion of the District of Columbia.
Alexander's Island was once a controversial site known for its "bogs and swamps and frogs." At low tide, the island was attached to—and claimed by—Virginia. At high tide, the Potomac River encircled it, making it part of the District of Columbia.
Tensions over Alexander's Island exploded in 1904. A group of enraged men carrying axes and sledgehammers raided the Alexander Island Race Track in an attempt to close it. The District of Columbia did not permit race track betting, while Virginia did.
In 1915, the Army Corps of Engineers began dredging the Potomac River. In the process, they completely removed the swampy landmass of Alexander's Island. In its place, they created the Boundary Channel.
When Alexandria County was retroceded to Virginia in the 1840s, no effort was made to draw a boundary line between the County and the remaining portion of the District of Columbia. The US Government began acquiring land on the Virginia shore of the Potomac mainly by purchasing the Arlington Estate. Still, it wasn’t until the Federal Government began to build a National Airport at Gravelly Point below Alexander's Island that boundaries became a hot issue. A legal case was made challenging the US Government’s activity in creating a landfill where the exact location of the DC-Virginia boundary became foggy. The landfill changed the shoreline, and Alexander’s Island was now more of a peninsula and part of Virginia than an island in the Potomac and part of DC.
The US Supreme Court decided the case in 1931, setting the boundary line at the high water mark of the Potomac on the Virginia shore as it had existed in 1791. But where had that high water mark been? There had been no survey at the time, and the passage of time had made many changes in the riverfront.
So, the Boundary Commission was formed by Congressional legislation to address this question. In December 1935, the Boundary Commission issued a report, giving the federal government (representing the District) all the land east of the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway. However, a prominent congressional battle over the report led to no action being taken, and the dispute continued. Finally, in 1945, Congress enacted legislation essentially enacting the recommendations of the Boundary Commission report, except for the National Airport, which went to the federal government (with some caveats for law enforcement in Virginia).
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