Virginia Shipbuilding Company

During World War I, the Virginia Shipbuilding Company built a facility at Jones Point to build merchant ships (10 being delivered before operations shut down in 1920) – and purchased 162 lots in Rosemont in the spring of 1918, to build houses for its employees. In 1920, it emerged that the company had diverted $400,000 paid to it by the federal government for ship construction to house construction, and a federal investigation followed, which contributed to the collapse of the company.