Back in 1931, a Richmond man named Jimmie Scott purchased four forested acres in the quiet Rothesay neighborhood. Just south of Windsor Farms, on a bluff overlooking the James River, those…
Browsing: Richmond History
When the country’s first bicycling craze swept the South in the 1890s, a Richmond businessman and philanthropist opened a 9-acre cycling club in Henrico County, just outside the city. He died…
Stanton Thalhimer still looks for the peacock that used to roam the grounds of the Farm when he was six years old and visited Maymont. “The peacock isn’t there any…
Only weeks after its founding in December 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged by Congress to establish federal air quality standards. The Clean Air Act passed as a…
In 1913, a theater opened in Jackson Ward that would become the center of African American arts and entertainment in Richmond for the next fifty years. In an officially segregated…
Named after a 21,000-foot inactive volcano in Ecuador, Chimborazo Hill has a dramatic, if not explosive, history of racial conflict that spans more than two centuries. In 1656, it was the…
Our children are bombarded with news of racially motivated crime. White police officers killing innocent black men. Black men killing blameless police officers. How do we begin to explain the…
In 1880, a lauded Confederate photographer, made famous for his images taken at Fort Sumter, moved his family and his photography studio to Richmond, Virginia. For the next two decades, George…
With the establishment of Jamestown, a long and complicated relationship between Native Americans – the first Virginians – and English colonists began. As John Smith explored the surrounding territory in…
In 1970, in order to satisfy a federal mandate to desegregate Richmond Public Schools, Judge Robert Merhige, Jr. ordered the implementation of a busing program that would attempt to achieve…
As the first, largest, and wealthiest English colony in the New World, Virginia has a rich political history reaching back to our nation’s founding. Four of the first five presidents…
The oldest private club in Richmond was founded in 1876 by seven men with one six-person boat. With the addition of a coxswain in the stern, the Virginia Boat Club fit in…
