What's in a name?

This isn't a post about a museum or a historic site, per say, but it is a post about a site with some history.  Have you ever wondered how certain places got their names?  Well, Diggory and I ventured to Old Town Alexandria a few days ago to run an errand, and we decided to stop at a park.  I was driving south down Union Street on our way to Jones Point Park (one of our new favorite places and a previous blog entry, read here) and stumbled upon a adorable-looking park filled with children.  Hoo-ray!  We pulled over (free, three-hour street parking, by the way) and skipped up to Windmill Hill Park to explore.  Wonder of wonders, almost the entire playground area is shaded, which is a super awesome feature when it's 100 degrees and humid.  There's a fenced in climbing apparatus, sandbox, and swings and lots of green space outside the fence and perfect for kite flying if the wind cooperates.  We tried, by the way, but there just wasn't a strong enough breeze.  We later crossed Union Street and explored an old bulkhead along the Potomac River and wandered down the pedestrian-only portion of Wilkes Street to Shipyard Park and took a rather lively ride on the floating dock and watched the boats on the river and the airplanes coming in to land at Reagan National Airport.  The dock has a little shelter house and benches, so it's a nice shady and breezy place to take a load off.  Plus, you might very well see turtles taking their own ride on a floating log.  Very cute.  

It wasn't until after we got home that I decided I really wanted to know the history of the park.  Voila!  Here's an article from the Alexandria Library for your reading pleasure.  It appears that the park (which, in the whole history of Alexandria, hasn't been a park all that long) got its name from a windmill constructed in 1843 to provide water for local farmers and drinking water for city residents.  Since then, the area has enjoyed a rather colorful, and sometimes rather unsavory, history - from Civil War brothels and settlements of railroad workers in the 1860s and 1870s to fancy summer promenades of the city's most fashionable in the 1890s.  In the twentieth century, the park witnessed festivals and celebrations, such as welcoming Charles Lindbergh to Washington, DC after his famous solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, before opening as a public park and playground at mid-century.  It's really quite a lovely park and clearly loved by its neighbors.  We'll be back, sooner rather than later, I suppose.

It didn't occur to me while we were at Windmill Hill Park to take pictures of the park itself, but here's one from the floating dock at Shipyard Park along the Potomac.

There are eight turtles on that floating log.  "Can you see the turtles, Diggory?  Count them.  One, two, three..."  Yep, that's how I talk now.

The bulkhead surrounding what was once a small shipyard is off limits, surrounded by a rope fence so tiny humans are at least momentarily deterred from getting too close to the water.  The rusty gates and signs of decay are rather picturesque.