Colonial Beach, Virginia

Colonial Beach is a town in Westmoreland County, Virginia, United States. The population was 3,542 at the 2010 census. Possessing the second-largest beachfront in the state, Colonial Beach was a popular resort town in the early to mid-20th century, before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge made ocean beaches on the Eastern Shore of Maryland more accessible to visitors from Washington, D.C. The family of Alexander Graham Bell maintained a summer home in Colonial Beach, the Bell House, which still stands today. Sloan Wilson, author of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, retired and died in Colonial Beach. George Washington, the first President of the United States, was born near here at what is now the George Washington Birthplace National Monument. As of 2011, the James Monroe Family Home Site, birthplace of President James Monroe, now has a small monument to him.