Excavations at the Virginia Glass Factory.

Archaeologists working on the 1800 block of Duke Street in late 1997 discovered the foundations, furnaces, ovens, chimney base, and thousands of artifacts from the Virginia Glass Company, a major turn-of-the-century Alexandria factory complex. The Carlyle site's developer, the Norfolk-Southern Corporation, sponsored the dig which was conducted by Dames and Moore, Inc., an archaeological consulting firm. Archaeologists measured, mapped, and photographed the industrial structures and scientifically excavated the site, recovering broken bottles and samples of melted glass.

The brick glass furnaces.

City Archaeologist Dr. Pamela Cressey says the site is "an archaeologist's paradise." on the surface, "you...see just a few bricks, but after removing the soil, a massive ruin appears...the brick furnaces and air shafts are still there. Archaeologists attribute the state of preservation to the fact that after the Virginia Glass Company burned down in 1914, the site was left vacant until the 1960s. Then a shopping center was built, but its shallow foundations left the remains virtually undisturbed.

A metal bottle mold found at the site.

Information gleaned from the excavation will provide researchers with detailed information on the industry. The Virginia Glass Company formed by seven German glass makers in 1893, and provided a steady supply of bottles for the rapidly expanding Robert Portner Brewing Company. Alexandria soon became a regional center for bottle production. Three more local factories" were soon established and all of them operated around the clock, turning out tens of thousands of bottles each day. Glass making quickly became the largest Alexandria industry, employing hundreds of men, women and children before World War I. The factories were plagued by fires, however, and these, along with the demise of Portner's at the start of prohibition, led to the end of the industry.

Glass factory buildings shown on a late 19th century insurance map.

Work on the seventy-acre Carlyle property has also brought to light other important archaeological sites, including the 19th century Shuter's Hill Brewery and the turn-of-the-century Black Baptist Cemetery located at the African American Heritage Park. The unearthed artifacts from the glass factory will eventually become part of the Alexandria Archaeology collection.