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(re-posted
from the insiders guide to Richmond, VA)
It used
to be said that Richmond, like Rome, was built on seven hills. You don’t
hear this much anymore, maybe because no one could ever agree on what
hills were supposed to be part of this comparison with the Eternal City.
Among those most frequently mentioned are nine: Church Hill, Gamble’s
Hill, Oregon Hill, Shockoe Hill, Libby Hill, Chimborazo Hill, Navy Hill,
Union Hill and Maddox Hill. Perhaps the comparison developed because a
building of Roman Imperial architecture — the State Capitol — sat atop
one of the hills and dominated the skyline in early lithographs. Its
architect, Thomas Jefferson, modeled it after Maison Carree, a Roman
temple at Nimes, France, which he found to be “one of the most
beautiful, if not the most beautiful and precious morsel of architecture
left to us by antiquity.” His only change from the original was to make
the Capitol’s columns Ionic instead of Corinthian. 
The Old Stone House is the oldest
standing building in the original boundaries of the city. Photo: Edgar Allen Poe Museum
Charles Dickens, when he visited Richmond in 1842, counted neither seven
nor nine hills, but eight. “We rode and walked about the town, which is
delightfully situated on eight hills, overhanging the James River; a
sparkling stream, studded here and there with bright islands, or brawling
over rocks,” he later wrote in his American Notes. It may be the
city’s enduring physical beauty, to which Dickens alludes, that has
given it such eternal appeal. The thing that strikes most visitors is the
number of trees and parks; indeed, Richmond has an exceedingly large
number of them. Then there is the city’s human scale and easygoing
lifestyle, things it has managed to retain along with an architectural
treasure-trove that makes every walking tour a delight. History plays its
role at every turn and, like many Richmonders, you soon may find yourself
talking about epic events of the past almost as if they happened
yesterday.
Richmond, the historic city, traces its origins to massive rock formations
(visible amid rapids in the James River) that once were part of Africa.
Recent discoveries place the Richmond Basin in a geological period called
Triassic, about 210 million years ago. Back then, the North American and
African continental tectonic plates were welded together but beginning to
pull apart, thus creating the Atlantic Ocean. The African plate was pushed
and pulled down into the earth’s mantle and, as the rock heated from the
friction and pressure, sediments of the African crust melted and squeezed
upward into the crust of the North American plate through deep faults or
cracks. In cutting across this rock fall zone, the James River drops some
100 feet in 7 miles, reaching sea level at Richmond’s 14th Street
bridge. It is here that the character of the river changes from rapids,
which at times are robust enough for Class V whitewater rafting, to a
meandering tidal estuary. It is this natural geological feature that
attracted Native Americans. They built their settlement of Powhatan
Village on what today is Fulton Hill. It was this same feature that
attracted the first English explorers in 1607, less than 10 days after
they landed at Jamestown. They had sailed up the river looking for a route
to the East India Sea. Here, at the falls of the river, they were struck
by the potential of the rapids to operate water wheels. Grist and flour
mills were vital to the economy of the time, as were sawmills, and the
first report by Capt. Christopher Newport to King James emphasized the
possibilities of harnessing the power of the rapids. The river also
offered a navigable route from the Atlantic Ocean to the interior of the
new land and easy transport for goods produced along the river’s edge.
Richmond thus became the site of one of the first English settlements in
America. It was here that the first hospital in America was established,
and plans were laid for a great university although it was never built.
The first tobacco, iron and coal produced in America, as well as timber,
formed the backbone of the economy. Great plantation homes, many still
standing today, were built along the James, and present-day Richmond was
laid out in 1737 — named for Richmond-on-the-Thames in Surrey County,
England. French Huguenots had settled in the area earlier, and in the late
1730s there was an effort to attract German immigrants. One, Jacob Ege, a
Wurttemberger, built a stone house, the oldest building still standing in
Richmond, on Main Street between 19th and 20th streets.
It was on Church Hill at St. John’s Church, before an assembly that
included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, that Patrick Henry spoke
47 unforgettable words: “Why stand we here idle? Is life so dear and
peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as
for me, give me liberty or give me death!” The shot heard round the
world was fired 30 days later at Concord, Massachusetts. As the
Revolutionary War took shape, plans were made to use tobacco in Richmond
warehouses as money, and the cannon factory at Westham, 6 miles to the
west, was busy turning out guns. Richmond’s Chatham Rope Yard was making
rigging for ships, and the Rubsamen Works across the river in Chesterfield
was manufacturing powder. Public records from the state capital at
Williamsburg were brought to Richmond for safekeeping from the British,
and the capital was moved to Richmond permanently in 1780. But the
British, nevertheless, were coming. In January 1781, Richmond was occupied
and burned by three British armies under Benedict Arnold. Continental Army
troops under the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben thwarted a
second attack. But British forces under Cornwallis occupied the town again
in June, burning tobacco and other goods in the streets. En route to
Richmond, Cornwallis made his headquarters for 18 days at Hanover Tavern.
Local lore says he left without paying his bill. Lafayette and Col.
Anthony Wayne pursued the British down the James, and the British
surrendered at Yorktown four months later.
As the young United States looked westward for growing room, no one was
more aware of the significance of the James River than George Washington.
On November 15, 1784, he appeared before the Virginia General Assembly in
Richmond to promote the formation of a company “for clearing and
extending the navigation of the James River from tidewater up to the
highest parts practicable on the main branch thereof.” The first
Richmond sections of the canal were completed in 1789 and 1794, and water
was let into the Richmond Basin between Eighth, 11th, Canal and Cary
streets in 1800. The “Great Waterway to the West,” what was to become
the James River and Kanawha Canal, helped open up America’s heartland
for trade to and from points abroad and transformed Richmond into an
important commercial center. As the early 1800s unfolded, Richmond was
beginning to realize its great potential for economic development. Tobacco
production was firmly established; the Richmond area was a major exporter
of American coal; four iron works were in operation; Richmond was a major
flour-milling center; and manufacturing plants were busy turning out
furniture, glass, books, textiles and refined sugar. The Richmond,
Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Company was chartered in 1834, and
within the next 20 years Richmond became a major railroad center served by
20 lines. Richmond College, now the University of Richmond, was chartered
in 1840, and Richmond’s Medical College of Virginia was incorporated in
1854. Interestingly enough, the city had a German-language newspaper, and
25 percent of the white population in those days was German.
Mounting intersectional animosities and tension over the slavery issue
reached a boiling point with abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harpers
Ferry in West Virginia. Virginia overwhelmingly opposed secession and
breakup of the Union and even attempted to call all states to a peace
conference in Washington. But the die was cast after seven Southern states
seceded from the Union, and President Lincoln called for troops from
Virginia to help suppress the rebellion in the Deep South. The Virginia
Convention, meeting in Richmond, voted almost 2-to-1 in favor of
withdrawing from the Union. Thus Richmond, for the second time, was thrust
into a war of secession. The city became the capital of the Confederate
States of America and its principal manufacturing, supply and hospital
center. “On to Richmond!” became the battle cry of Federal troops,
with the city as their primary objective for four years. Seven military
drives were hurled at the city. In one, the Battle of Cold Harbor, the
Union army suffered 7,000 casualties in less than 30 minutes. During the
war years bacon went from 12¢ a pound to $8 a pound and butter from 25¢
to $25 a pound. Lack of meat led Confederate President Jefferson Davis to
recommend rats as being “as good as squirrels.” Rats sold in some
places for $2.50 each, and the superintendent of a local military hospital
made available a recipe for cleaning, basting and roasting the rodents. Word
of Petersburg’s fall came to Davis on Palm Sunday, 1865, while he was
attending services at St. Paul’s Church. It was now clear that Richmond
could no longer be defended, and warehouses and stores were set afire.
Nine hundred buildings were burned during the evacuation fire, including
almost everything in the area bounded by Main, Fourth and 15th streets and
the James River. With fires raging out of control, the city’s surrender
took place the next day. When President Lincoln arrived unexpectedly, and
somewhat unceremoniously, on April 4, the smoke from the devastated
business and commercial district still lingered. From Rocketts Landing he
walked up Main Street and then to the White House of the Confederacy. It
would be five years before Virginia would be readmitted to the Union,
during which time it underwent Reconstruction, including two years of
military rule. Yet, almost phoenix-like, Richmond’s economy rebounded,
and the city entered an energetic period of industrialization and
urbanization. To find out much more on Richmond’s role in the War
Between the States, see this book’s chapter on The
Civil War, or pick up a copy of The Insiders Guide® to Civil War
Sites in the Eastern Theater, now in its second edition.
By the 1890s and the turn of the century, the economy was booming: iron,
tobacco, flour, paper, brick, woolens, locomotives, ships, fertilizer,
carriages, soap and spices were being produced. Richmond’s Bessemer
works was the third largest in the South. Truly, the city exemplified the
New South. In 1903 Maggie L. Walker, the daughter of a former slave,
founded what is now Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, making her the
nation’s first African-American female bank president. In 1914 Richmond was chosen as the
site for the headquarters of the Fifth Federal Reserve District, making it
the focal point of finance for much of the Southeast. For this and other
reasons, the city came out of World War I with enhanced business prestige.
From 1910 to 1920 the population jumped 34.5 percent. Richmond weathered
The Great Depression better than most cities because of the
Depression-resistant tobacco base of its economy. It even saw another
building boom in the late 1930s. But then, through World War II and for
the next two decades, things remained fairly status quo. The opening of
Reynolds Metals Company’s new corporate headquarters building in the
late 1950s, the founding of the fledgling James River Corporation in 1969,
and the completion in 1978 of the downtown riverfront headquarters of the
Federal Reserve Bank (designed by Minoru Yamasaki) set the stage for the
explosive era of growth that dramatically changed the face of the city. In
the 1980s, with strong regional government cooperation, a massive
expansionary period began. Richmond became firmly established as a major
corporate center as well as a U.S. beachhead for a large number of
Japanese and European companies, and the area grew into a major
distribution and financial center. It was also during this period that
local residents raised $8 million in 60 days for The Diamond, a showcase
minor-league baseball stadium with skyboxes, a restaurant and all of the
amenities (see our Spectator
Sports chapter). A $22 million expansion of the Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts doubled gallery space and gained the museum international
acclaim (see our chapter on The
Arts). The first phase of the $450 million James Center was completed.
And the $200 million Tobacco Row project — covering 15 contiguous city
blocks, the largest historic renovation project in the nation and an
important boost for downtown housing — got under way.
It has been estimated that one out of every five people living in the
Richmond area today didn’t live here three years ago. Some have come
with the avalanche of new companies that now call Richmond home. Some came
here to study at colleges and universities and then decided to stay.
Others have simply come, often without jobs, seeking a haven that, as an
Old World exchange student said, “has a certain continuum about it.”
This influx of new blood has generated an energy that is enhanced by
Richmond’s position as an urban center at the heart of what’s
described as an emerging Golden Crescent stretching from Baltimore and
Washington south to Virginia’s bustling ports of Hampton Roads. Add to
this Motorola’s development of a $3 billion, 230-acre “anchor site”
semiconductor manufacturing complex employing 5,000 people and
construction of a $1.5 billion Siemens/Motorola memory chip complex
employing 1,500 people (scheduled to be completed in 1998), and you have
the makings of a 21st-century “Fab City,” with everything that
designation implies. Richmond today ranks among the nation’s largest
Fortune 500 corporate headquarters centers. It is a major financial
center, buoyed by the presence of the headquarters of the Fifth Federal
Reserve District, regional banks, big accounting firms and a vast array of
securities and investment firms. Crisscrossed by north-south and east-west
interstates and rail lines, with its own deep-water port and perhaps the
nation’s fastest-growing air cargo facilities, Richmond has become an
important distribution center. Partners for Livable Places named the
Richmond area one of the dozen or so “most livable and innovative”
metropolitan areas in the nation. Inc. magazine picked it as one of
the top-30 “Hot Spots” for new and expanding business. Health magazine
ranked the Richmond area No. 1 among “America’s Ten Healthiest
Cities.” And City & State magazine placed Richmond’s
government among the nation’s top 10, based on financial health and
management. Famous sons and daughters include Pocahontas, the Indian
princess; Nancy Langhorne, who later became Lady Astor, the first woman
elected to the British House of Commons, and her sister, Irene, the famous
Gibson Girl of the 1890s; Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the mystery
story; other writers such as Mary Johnston, Ellen Glasgow, James Branch
Cabell and today’s Tom Wolfe and Patricia Cornwell; George W. Goethals,
chief engineer of the Panama Canal; former U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Lewis F. Powell Jr.; tennis, football and golf greats Arthur Ashe Jr.,
Willie Lanier, Lanny Wadkins, Bobby Wadkins and Vinny Giles; and
entertainers such as Shirley MacLaine, Warren Beatty and the late Bill
“Bojangles” Robinson. In addition, professional careers launched here
include those of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jeff MacNelly
and TV commentator Roger Mudd. Says the meeting planners guide of the
Metropolitan Richmond Convention & Visitors Bureau: “Virginia’s
capital is like no other . . . Its architect was Thomas Jefferson. Its
spokesman was Patrick Henry. Its lawmaker, John Marshall. Its poet, Edgar
Allan Poe. And its general, Robert E. Lee.” Richmond’s Oliver W. Hill,
the civil rights lawyer, played a key role in the landmark Brown vs.
the Board of Education decision. In addition, the city has been
blessed with risk-takers and corporate visionaries — the Gottwalds of
Ethyl, Brent Halsey and Bob Williams of James River Corporation, Jim Wheat
of Wheat First Butcher Singer, the Reynoldses of Reynolds Metals,
Claiborne Robins of A.H. Robins, J. Harwood Cochrane of Overnite
Transportation and subsequently of Highway Express, the Bryans of Media
General, the Lewises of Best Products, the Wurtzels of Circuit City
Stores, and a host of other business and community leaders who have helped
make Richmond what it is today. The beauty of the city’s public places
is something to enjoy, and Richmonders make the most of it with street
festivals, outdoor concerts, baseball at The Diamond, arts in the parks
and whitewater rafting on the James (see our Annual
Events, Arts,
Parks and
Recreation and Spectator
Sports chapters). This leads into a cultural world that is packed with
symphony, ballet, opera, galleries, theater, museums, impromptu
performances, food festivals, garden and flower shows, spring and holiday
house tours and so many other offerings that Style Weekly, the
local arts and cultural journal, once was led to headline: “Lordy, Lordy, So Much To Do, So Little Time!” Modern-day Richmond — something
people refuse to believe until they see it — is described by Pulitzer
Prize-winning editor and historian Virginius Dabney as an “intriguing
blend of the old and the new — of Charleston and Savannah on one hand,
and Atlanta and Dallas on the other. While showing the élan and drive in
business and industrial realms, the city clings — a bit precariously at
times — to its distinctive 18th- and 19th-century heritage.” In
trying to describe in a few words what today’s Richmond is all about,
this is probably the closest we can get.
The
Insiders' Guide® to Greater Richmond.
Written by local
authors, it's simply the most in-depth source of information
you will find on Richmond, and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties.
This guide offers individual chapters on accommodations, shopping,
nightlife,
restaurants, attractions and Civil War history, for the city Pulitzer
Prize-winning
historian Virginius Dabney calls "an intriguing blend of the old and
the new.
" Richmond has been waiting for you like a Southern gentleman.
All copyrights are that of their owners.
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