U.S. Naval Torpedo Station – Pieces of History

For nearly 20 years the National Archives’ Alexandria Federal Records Center was housed in the former U.S. Naval Torpedo station located on Alexandria’s waterfront.

One day after the end of World War I, the U.S. Navy began construction of the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station on the waterfront of Alexandria, Virginia. The factory built torpedoes until the mid-1920s, then became a munitions and records storage facility. Over time, additional buildings were added, and in the lead-up to World War II, it again produced torpedoes for aircraft and submarines.

When it was longer needed after the war ended, the Navy closed the torpedo station in 1950, and that September it became the Alexandria Records Center. The National Archives started creating Federal Records Centers in 1950, and one of its earliest facilities was housed in four buildings along the waterfront that were part of the old Naval Torpedo Station. 

By 1954, the center occupied 421,625 square feet of warehouse space in the four buildings, with records stored in cardboard cartons on steel shelving. 

Another occupant of the former torpedo station was the Departmental Records Branch. This branch was not part of the National Archives but instead was part of the Adjutant General’s Office within the Department of the Army. They managed the noncurrent records of the Army, Air Force, and Department of Defense. They also housed a large collection of captured German records. 

At the end of World War II, Allied military forces in Germany collected truckloads of documents. The files were divided among France, Great Britain, and the United States. In the U.S., the majority of the documents, an estimated 21,000 linear feet, were deposited at the Departmental Records Branch in the former torpedo station. 

In 1956, the Departmental Records Branch partnered with the American Historical Association to microfilm and describe these records before they were to be transferred back to Germany. Many of these microfilmed copies were transferred to the National Archives in the late 1950s and early 60s. 

In 1958, the National Archives took over the microfilming project when the Departmental Records Branch became the World War II Records Division within the National Archives. The WWII Records Division was also in charge of noncurrent U.S. military records that were housed in the facility. 

In addition to holding the World War II Records Division, the former torpedo station also held noncurrent federal records from the Mid-Atlantic region, including records for the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, and government agencies in the Washington metro area. 

Beginning in 1967, the records held in the Alexandria Federal Records Center were moved to the new Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, and the National Archives vacated all four of its former Naval Torpedo Station buildings, including the original 1918 building. 

Since 1974 the original building has been an art center, and today the Torpedo Factory Art Center is home to the largest number of publicly accessible working artist studios in the U.S.