Potomac Yard

Potomac Yard was one of the busiest rail yards on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Today, it refers to the neighborhood encompassing the same, which straddles southeastern Arlington County and northern Alexandria, Virginia, bounded by U.S. Route 1, the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Four Mile Run, and Braddock Road. It may also refer to one of several developments on the site, especially the Potomac Yard Retail Center strip mall.

English settlers built several plantations on the site in the 18th century. The land, much owned by the Swann and Daingerfield families, became part of Alexandria County, D.C. with the creation of the District of Columbia in 1791, and retroceded to Virginia in 1846.

Its role as a transportation hub began when Congress chartered the Alexandria Canal Company in 1830. The canal, which opened on December 2, 1843, would connect the port of Alexandria with the end of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (completed 1850) in Georgetown via the Potomac Aqueduct Bridge. It would operate until abandoned in 1886.

Railroad development in the area began in the 1850s, though stymied by political concerns and by the American Civil War. The Alexandria and Washington Railroad began service on a new rail line between Long Bridge and Alexandria in 1857. Order to the region's mishmash of active and abandoned rail lines and stations did not come until the City Beautiful movement of the late 19th century. The 1901 Plan for Washington, D.C. (report of the McMillan Commission) proposed consolidating the region's rail operations, including a new Washington Union Station (approved 1903, completed 1908) and a New Long Railroad Bridge (completed 1904).

...
Wikipedia