National Register of Historic Places
Arlington National Cemetery Historic District
Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia
The record
- Listed
- April 11, 2014
- Type
- Historic district
- Address
- 1 Memorial Ave., Arlington
- County
- Arlington
- State
- Virginia
- Contributing resources
- 22 buildings, 10 structures, 1 site, 30 objects
- Coordinates
- 38.88056, -77.06455
- Reference number
- 14000146
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
The outline is the area recorded for this listing in National Park Service map data, drawn approximately.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
The Arlington National Cemetery Historic District is a historic district at 1 Memorial Ave. in Arlington, listed in the National Register in 2014. It covers 624 acres and includes Arlington House, built around 1818, along with buildings in styles ranging from Greek Revival to Beaux Arts, Colonial Revival and the Modern Movement.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A, B, C and D, with national-level significance in military history, politics and government, landscape architecture and architecture.
Physical character
Arlington House has a columned portico behind a Seneca sandstone boundary wall, with curvilinear paved roads linking it to the cemetery's grave sections. The Memorial Amphitheater was built in 1920 and the Arlington Memorial Bridge in 1932, and cemetery walks were replaced with flagstone paving in the 1960s. Headstone rules changed repeatedly: the standard size was modified in 1903, a new design was approved in 1922, and burial segregation by race ended in 1948.
Historical context
It served as a military camp from 1861 to 1865 and became a military cemetery in 1864. Freedman's Village, a settlement for freedmen, was established in 1863 and emptied in 1900. The Tomb of the Civil War Unknowns was erected in 1866, and a Confederate section was authorized in 1900. The World War I unknown soldier was buried in 1921. President John F. Kennedy died in 1963, and a memorial and eternal flame were added at his gravesite in 1967.