If walls could talk: Downtown Alexandria's oldest known commercial structure gets historical plaque

Think of the stories that the walls of 301 Jackson Place could tell of Alexandria’s earliest days if they could talk.

The building on the corner of 3^rd and Jackson Streets is reputed to be the oldest known commercial structure in downtown Alexandria, said Thomas McBride.

The brick exterior walls are original while the inside was completely renovated, said Patrick Moore.

“It’s a steel structure building inside of the skin of history,” he said.

He noted that the second and third floors are concrete.

“If the walls fell off, we would still be standing here,” said Moore.

McBride and Moore are owners of 301 Jackson Place, a professional office building, along with Lindsey Torbett and R.J. Dunn. The partners recently held a ceremony to unveil a historical marker on the Jackson Street side of the building celebrating its place in Alexandria history.

This part of the city where the building is has always been used for commerce, said McBride.

Prior to the Civil War, Native Americans used to market their goods here, said attorney and historian Mike Tudor who gave a brief history.

And structures that were in this area of the city may have survived the Burning of Alexandria during the Civil War in 1864.

“Two-thirds of the city was burned. That’s kind of what we agree on. Sixty percent was burned southwest to northeast. From here it escaped burning but we don’t know what was here,” said Tudor. “We know that the City Hall that was built in 1859 right over there survived the burning because there's a picture from the 1908 Hotel Bentley that shows that wall. Also, we know that at least this area was not burned. So, whatever was here was not burned.”

He said Sanborn Insurance Maps show that two single-story structures labeled “tenements” occupied the site by 1885. The “tenements” were next to a cobbler’s shop. Then in 1890, the Sterkx family built a two-story hotel called the Stonewall Hotel.

"Which we presume, like many things in South, at that time, was named after Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. Although, I don't know that we have documentation or anything. They just could have just thought that Stonewall was a neat name. I don’t know. More likely, it was named after General Stonewall Jackson,” said Tudor.

A third floor was added in 1896 and in 1913 brick was added to the exterior, he told the crowd. Then in the 1920s the name was changed to the Jefferson Hotel.

“That’s in the 1929 City Directory. By 1931, and we assumed it had been the Jefferson Hotel, at least in the ‘20s. By 1931, the Jefferson Hotel was closed. And then a new iteration of the Stonewall, renamed the Stonewall again, was accompanied by the Stonewall Bar, which was somewhere down here, we think,” said Tudor.

According to the historical marker, the building also housed the McAdams & Co., department store from 1929-34.

During World War II, the McGintys who were descendants of the Sterkx, acquired the hotel and renamed it the Astor Hotel, he said.

“It was just the top two floors. And it survived until 1951 when the operator of the hotel died,” said Tudor.

By 1954, the top two floors were closed, and the bottom floor was occupied by Standard Printing Company.

“As a kid I grew up around here,” said State Rep. Mike Johnson, District 27, about Standard Printing where his father worked.

He shared his memories of the building where his father C.F. “Joe” Johnson was a salesman. He started working there in 1953 as a clerk after graduating from Bolton High School.

“I particularly have a memory of exploring this building when upstairs there were still cabinets, chifforobes and bed frames,” he said.

Being a young boy, the reason he would go up there was to watch the yearly Amicus Club Rodeo Parade from the second or third floor windows.

He recalled a “brush with fame” he had as a child while watching the Amicus Club Rodeo Parade from the second or third floor windows when he saw the late actor Michael Landon riding in the parade.

“Little Joe from from ‘Bonanza’ saw me on the 2nd floor and said, ‘Come down’,” said Johnson. “And so I did, with my dad.”

Landon came into the building to get a drink of water, then got back in the parade, he said.

Johnson said there are many “emotional components” for him regarding the building.

“It thrills me to know that this is still here because it's so many memories,” he said. “Sitting on my dad's shoulders as a small child at the Christmas parade, because it was a night parade then. It came down and we would stand right outside here to the store.”

Another 301 Jackson Street LLC partner, Patrick Moore, also shared a story about the late Alexandria attorney Camille Gravel who visited the building and had the feeling he had been in it before.

Gravel told Moore that when he was a boy, he lived in the country on Elliott Street and he was the waterboy for the first Alexandria Aces baseball team who stayed there when it was a hotel.

“He said, ‘I would get on my pony and ride down here on Saturday mornings and come up these floors and bang on the little hotel room doors to wake the guys up,’” Moore recalled Gravel telling him.

He woke them up because he wanted them to take him fishing on the Red River.

In 1984, Buddy Tudor and his property management company Tudor Enterprises and other investors bought the building and renovated it. Mike Tudor, his brother, was the attorney who helped them renovate this building and the Hotel Bentley simulatneously.

Moore said that the entire building from the roof all the way to the slab was demolished except for the exterior brick walls.

The heart pine used in the old building was planed and dressed and reused for baseboards and window trimmings in offices on the second and third floors.

“Which was so interesting because when they put it in there, the sap started running again and you could touch it. It was sticky. And I remember Buddy Tudor said if this wood would have ever seen the light of a match the place would have exploded. That's what they make Turpentine out of,” Moore said.

Moore also shared another interesting piece of information about a former building manager, C.M. Moore who was hired in 1896 by the Sterkx family to manage the building. As far as he knows, they aren’t related.

Moore has been managing the building since the early 1980s when the restrooms were running low on toilet paper and he called Tudor.

“He said, ‘Just go by some and send me the bill.’ Well, I’ve been managing the building ever since that day,” said Moore. “It just happened I didn't want to do it so but it's been that way it's been a good building to take care of.”

After Buddy Tudor died, the 301 Jackson Place partners purchased the building in 2011.

Though they are professional office building, Moore said the building is just the right size that everyone knows one another.

“If somebody has a flat in the parking lot or they see something funny, we're all out there taking care of each other and that's just a neat thing. That's the best thing about this building,” said Moore.

Up until the building was paid off, Moore said that no money was ever taken out of the building but it was put back in for its upkeep.

They also like to keep the building green. New LED lights were installed and filtered water fountains installled on all three floors. Moore says that they have saved 472 gallons and prevented 7,554 plastic bottles from being thrown away they were installed a year and a half ago.

“So that's a good thing. We're proud of that,” said Moore.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: Downtown Alexandria's oldest known commercial structure gets historical plaque