You're now standing in the cove protected by Rosalie Island, the point of first landfall for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Maryland. Rosalie Island is actually not an island at all-it is a peninsula. Indeed it is not even a natural landform. The "island" was formed from the spoils (castoff sediments) of a huge dredging operation, which also created the cove you see before you. In 1941, the operation kicked into high gear with the rapid construction of the Pentagon. During the sixteen-month construction period, sand and gravel quarried here were barged upriver to a plant used to make over 435,000 cubic yards of concrete, enough for 17.5 miles of corridors, 67 acres of parking, and 30 miles of access highway.
Due to wartime shortages of materials, reinforced concrete was used in lieu of formed steel in constructing the Pentagon. This made possible a saving of 43,000 tons of steel, more than a enough to build a battleship.
[Two Photos Courtesy of Office of the Secretary of Defense.]
Early photos show the presence of an island in this general area, but large scale dredging operations during the construction of the Pentagon in the early 1940s substantially altered landforms. Continued dredging produced a pile of sediments that became Rosalie Island, visible on the Maryland side of the first Woodrow Wilson Bridge, completed in 1961.
[Three aerial photos of the Potomac River coastline in 1938, 1952, and 1963.]Historic photos courtesy of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project.
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