Potomac River Guide Home

Interactive Maps

The Lower Potomac

The Potomac Estuary

Mount Vernon to Anacostia River

Mall Area

Georgetown to Great Falls

Potomac Piedmont

Upper Potomac

The North Branch

Boat Ramps

Monitoring Sites

Bridges and Ferries

Cruises and Charters

Search Potomac Sites

Also Explore

The Hudson River GuideThe Delaware River Guide
NEW! The Connecticut River Guide

Breton Bay

Maryland Industrial Site

blank dot

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.

Suggested Links

Click here for larger map and nearby sites.

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