If you didn’t know that Washington, D.C., is home to the oldest continuously operated fish market in the United States, you’re not alone. Given Captain White Seafood Market’s 2021 departure from the Municipal Fish Market and the extensive renovations to the D.C. Waterfront (now known as The Wharf), it would be easy to think that the fish market is just a small part of Southwest D.C.’s history. In fact, the market, which was known as the Maine Avenue Fish Market for many years, has been around since 1805, when Thomas Jefferson was president, and is 17 years older than the Fulton Fish Market in New York City.
From D.C.’s beginnings in 1791, the D.C. Waterfront was meant to be a commercial and transportation hub for the capital. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who designed the new federal city, wanted to create a system of canals that would help connect Washington, D.C., to the world. The new federal district was built on marshy land where two rivers met. Many locals preferred using the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers to get around, since the few roads available were in bad shape. In 1805, the Municipal Fish Market was created to give seafood vendors a place to sell fish, oysters, and crab they purchased from Chesapeake Bay watermen and brought to D.C. by boat.
In 1823, Congress designated part of the Waterfront as “fish-docks.” The fish-docks were the only place in D.C. where fish could legally be sold from a boat.
From a permanent structure to a redeveloped Waterfront
A permanent Municipal Fish Market building wasn’t erected until the World War I building boom hit the District. The Fish Market was finished in 1918, the same year the Main Navy Munitions Building on the National Mall opened. Immigrants, government workers, and Black families all called the Waterfront home.
The redevelopment craze hit Washington, D.C. in the 1950s, and the Waterfront area was designated as part of the route for the Southwest Freeway. Several years later, much of the Waterfront was designated for razing, but the Fish Market’s seafood vendors pointed to their 99-year leases and refused to leave. The District built a municipal pier near the I-395 bridge for the seafood vendors to use so that the Fish Market building could be demolished. The vendors tied their barges to the pier and sold their wares there. Today, Municipal Fish Market merchants sell fish, shrimp, crab, and oysters from steel barges.
Working with developer Hoffman-Madison Waterfront, the Council of the District of Columbia moved forward with Waterfront redevelopment plans in the early 2000s. The Municipal Fish Market remained as part of The Wharf, a mixed-use development with hotels, high-rise apartments, offices, eateries, and shops. Conflict over rent demands and other issues caused the owner of Captain White Seafood, a Fish Market mainstay, to leave the Waterfront in 2021. Jessie Taylor Seafood, which has been a Municipal Fish Market vendor since 1939, remains, selling fresh and cooked seafood to locals and tourists alike.
