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Breton Bay

Maryland Industrial Site

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One of the last large industrial sites on the Potomac River, Breton Bay was the home of Breton Bay Water Transportation, a company that hauled barges of sand and gravel up the Potomac to Washington. Tugboats pushed barges, each capable of holding 900 tons, up the river, usually to mooring areas at Occoquan Bay near Woodbridge and in Washington at the South Capitol Street Bridge on the Anacostia. Another company, Goose Bay, operates sand and gravel barges along the Potomac in Charles County.

Industrial use of the Potomac is a fraction of what it was in the early 1900s. The only remaining commercial traffic on the river are occasional oil shipments and small ocean-going freighters that deliver one boatload of newsprint each week to the Robinson Terminal Warehouse in Alexandria.

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Contact Information
St. Mary's County Historical Society
41625 Court House Drive
Leonardtown MD 20657
301-475-2467
Website