The Jan. 1, 1885 issue of The Richmond Dispatch highlighted the numerous accounts of the city's progress the previous year. It included much information about the city's civic, business, religious, and social life in numerous articles, features, and statistical tables. The transcription below is of the article that focused on the history and improvements of Richmond's parks, streets, and public buildings. To view an image of the entire article, click here the PDF . To read the complete eight pages of this issue, visit this page found on Chronicling America..
The transcription is kept as original as possible and it often includes awkward spelling (like "gravelled") and the unusual grammar and punctuation of the newspaper writer.
PARKS AND STREETS.
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VALUABLE PUBLIC PROPERTY
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Information About the City Parks and
Streets and Capitol Square – Money
Well Invested
Nowhere
in the progress and prosperity of Richmond better exhibited than in her parks
and streets. There were four years of war, when nothing could be done for their
betterment. Then there were five years when the city was wholly or partly under
military rules and when the public mind was engrossed with more pressing matters,
and no systematic plan of improvement could be inaugurated; but with the return
of the city government to the hands of its people in 1870, Captain Charles H.
Dimmock was elected City Engineer, and a real start was made. Captain Dimmock
was an able and clear-sighted officer, and he lost no time in devising plans to
make the city more beautiful. For about two years and a half, he worked with
great skill, earnestness, and sagacity, and laid the foundations of many
improvements which were afterwards made. He died in 1872. There was an
interval, during which Mr. S. Edward Bates - long connected with the office,
long doing excellent service - acted as Engineer, and in 1873 Colonel W. E.
Cutshaw was elected to succeed Captain Dimmock. That the Colonel has been an
exceedingly valuable officer, every street and every park in this city
proclaims. He has been laborious and systematic, and has come to be recognized
as one of the great city engineers of this country. Monuments to his skill will
exist here in Richmond as long as the city lasts. The organization of his
department is as follows:
W.
E. Cutshaw, city engineer; S. Edward Bates, Jackson Bolton, Chas. E. Bolling,
and Frank T. Bates, assistant engineers; S. B. Jacobs, clerk.
John
J. Chadick, D. F. Craddock, and John H. Gardner, managers of hands and carts.
A.
P. McGhee, manager sewer force.
M.
M. Ellis, Daniel Higgins. James Hannan, and W. P. Purcell, park keepers.
The following information concerning the city parks, streets, and buildings shows what advance has been made in recent years, and goes far to prove that not only is Richmond a prosperous but that it is a progressive city:
City Parks.
Monroe park is located in the western part of the city, and is bounded by Franklin, Main, Belvidere, and Laurel streets. It contains about 7 acres, and was purchased in the year 1851. Before the war it was used as a Fair Grounds. The first troops that came here from the South during the war camped there, and it was occupied as a camp-ground and military hospital until the evacuation. For a year or more after that the United States Government used it for like purposes, and there was a cholera hospital for soldiers there in 1866. It was first laid out as a park in 1868, with winding paths, and was enclosed with a neat wooden fence and osage hedge, and a considerable number of trees were planted and a fountain erected. Except some slight changes and a few additional trees added, nothing more of any consequence was done till the fall of 1881, when the grounds on all sides were nicely sloped back and made to conform to the grade of the surrounding streets, and the slope resodded. The old osage hedge was then replaced by a California privet hedge, and the trees that were cut around in sloping were lowered. This was a great improvement to the grounds. In consequence of the elevation of the park above the sidewalks, and the height of the old hedge, the view of the grounds from the sidewalks was entirely obstructed. As it is now, a clear view can be obtained from any side.
As the grounds were originally laid he off with winding paths, having no direct access to the entrances, the necessity of a change of paths became apparent, and at present the park is being laid out anew. Avenues twenty feet wide, radiating from the centre of the grounds in the direction of each gate, with cross avenues of the same width, are being made, and the fountain will be changed from its present position to the centre of the grounds. All this will be completed in the spring.
The park will be greatly beautified by the changes now being made. It will have at least two thirds of a mile of paths. All of the lamp-posts have been shifted to the lines of the new paths, and trees taken up out of the line of the new paths and replanted. The grounds are amply provided with good substantial benches.
MARSHALL PARK (LIBBY HILL.)
These grounds were purchased by the city about the year 1852. They lie in the eastern part of the city between Franklin, Main, Twenty-seventh, and Twenty-ninth streets, and contain about three and one half acres.
These grounds remained in a very rugged condition. no attempt being made to improve them, till the spring of 1878, when they were taken in hand by the City Engineer, and laid out into drives, terraces, and paths. It is a prominent hill overlooking the river. Falls plantation, and a large portion of the city. Its elevation is about 150 feet above the river. It contains two thirds of a mile of drives and paths. Trees are planted along the same, and the grounds are amply supplied with good substantial benches.
In the year 1881 a thirty-foot road way was started, commencing at the junction of Twenty-eighth and Main streets, continuing eastwardly along the southern slope of the hill, passing up the "Bloody Run" ravine, crossing the portal of the tunnel, and connecting with Chimborazo Park. This road has just been completed, and makes a beautiful drive, in full view of the river, at least three quarters of a mile in length. The view from Marshall Park is unsurpassed, commanding as it does the river for at least five miles, Manchester, Hollywood, Gamble's Hill, and most of the city, and perhaps is more frequently visited by strangers than any other point in the city. It has eight commanding points, with views ranging from one to five miles.
At present the roads and paths on this hill are nicely graveled, and it is provided with a small but beautiful fountain. All of this work has been done in the last few years, and what was an unsightly hill, full of gullies, washes, &c., has been transformed into a beautiful park, of which the people, particularly of the eastern section, are justly proud.
GAMBLE'S HILL PARK.
These grounds were purchased by the city about the year 1851, but no improvement was made on them till the spring of 1879, when, under the direction of our City Engineer, they were laid off into drives and terraces and paths. The plots were nicely shaped up and sewed in grass, and the slopes to some extent sodded, and several hundred [grown?] planted along the drives and paths. This park has at least one half mile of roadways, which at present are nicely graded and gravelled, and provided with ample benches,
This hill in in the southwestern part of the city between Broad and Fifth streets, south of Arch street, and is elevated about 140 feet above the river. It is one of the most prominent views in the city, overlooking the river, Falls plantation, Hollywood, Manchester, Church Hill, and a large portion of the city. It was in a very rough condition when the work was undertaken by the City Engineer, and would not at present be recognized by those who were familiar with it before the improvements were made. The contour of the grounds has been entirely changed, and what was ravines and gullies is now a beautiful terraced park.
RESERVOIR PARK.
These grounds were purchased by the city, for the construction of a new reservoir and pump-house, between the years 1874 and 1881. They are situated in the county of Henrico, about two miles west of the city, and contain as a whole about 203 acres of ground.
In
the year 1876 the northeastern portion of these grounds was laid off in wide serpentine
drives, and a large lake, irregular in outline, containing about twelve acres,
was formed. An eighty-foot avenue, leading from the reservoir to Main street,
was made, and along it three rows of trees planted. In the spring of 1877 about
1,200 additional trees were set out along the drives, and clusters of
evergreens planted at the corners of the plots, and the plots nicely shaped up
and sowed in grass. In 1881 a fifty-foot roadway was started from what was
known as the Tabb road, extending westwardly down and along the Haxall ravine
to the pump-house. This road was continued last year from the pump-house
eastwardly along the south slope of the hill to near the Crenshaw quarries,
thence curving to the left, connecting with the Tabb road, making a complete
circuit.
These grounds have about three miles of roadways nicely graded and gravelled. The northern section is provided with benches. In the year 1882 an avenue 104 feet wide, in a direct line with the eighty-foot avenue, was laid out to the junction of the Broad-street road, and nicely graded nearly its entire length of 1 miles. This Avenue, connecting as it does with the Broad-street road, 118 feet wide, makes a continuous wide avenue leading to the city about 44 miles in length. The grading and gravelling of this avenue will be completed this spring. When the three rows of trees are planted, and the twelve-feet walks formed on the sides, this will be the prettiest and most fashionable drive of the city.
CHIMBORAZO PARK.
These grounds were purchased by the city in the year 1877, and contain about 39 acres. They are situated in the eastern part of the city, immediately east of Thirty-second street and south of Broad street, and were during the war the site of one of the largest military hospitals in the Confederacy. They were laid out into a driving-park in the spring and fall of 1878, and work commenced at once. The park has winding drives, terraces, and paths, and the plots on the hill are nicely shaped. The plots are beautifully sodded, trees are planted along all the drives, roadways are nicely gravelled and provided with good benches.
This hill is elevated about 160 feet above the James, and affords a beautiful view of the river and the surrounding country east and south of the city. When the slopes and terraces are completed, lakes formed, and fountains erected, this will be one of the prettiest parks to be found anywhere.
TERRACED ROADWAYS (TAYLOR'S HILL).
These grounds were purchased by the city in the spring of the present year and are situated between Twenty-first and Twenty-third streets and Grace and Franklin streets, and contain about two acres. Work was commenced several months ago in forming roadways and terraces, and considerable progress has been made. Work will be continued on this hill in the spring, and when the roadways and terraces are fully formed it will resemble Libby Hill in appearance and will be one of the loveliest parks in the city, as it is in a commanding position, overlooking the city westwardly, and is elevated about 145 feet above the river. This hill - popularly known as Taylor's Hill - is a famous resort for visitors, affording as it does one of the prettiest views to be obtained in the city.
Public Buildings.
The Howitzers Armory, located on the City-Spring lot, fronts on Eighth street, north of Leigh street. These grounds were acquired in the year 1847. They have a front on Seventh and Eighth streets of 110 feet and a depth from Seventh to Eighth street of 260 feet. No improvement of any consequence was made there, except to wall in the spring and enclose the grounds, till the construction of the armory in 1874. This building is two stories in height, fronting on Eighth street 85 feet, and has a depth of 40 feet. The lower story is arranged for a gun-house and the upper one for a drill-and-club room. At each end of the building a pass-way is left to give access to the spring grounds. In 1877 a heavy stone wall was built on the north side of the grounds as a guard wall, and the outlet of the spring removed to this wall. and the grounds were filled in about 12 feet in height. This work was a great improvement not only to the armory building, but to the grounds generally. This building has never been stuccoed as originally intended. When this is done it will be a very neat, pretty building, well adapted to its uses.
PUMP-HOUSE.
This building, at the old "Three-Mile Locks," is constructed of James river granite, is about 130 feet long and 50 feet wide, and is two stories in height. It is Gothic in style of architecture, and arranged with all the modern conveniences - office, reception-rooms, work-room, and large pavilion, 50x80. It was commenced in 1880, and completed in 1882. The character of the building, its workmanship, the material used, and its general appearance will compare favorably with any structure of the kind in any city.
In connection with the regular pump-house building, the steam-pump building was erected in 1881. This is built of brick, is about 90x30 feet, and one story in height, and is provided with the necessary engine- and boiler-rooms, storage cellar, &c.
ENGINE-HOUSE (BROOK AVENUE AND MARSHALL STREET.
This building was erected in the year 1883. It is about 70 feet front by 114 feet deep, and two stories in height. The first floor is arranged for the Fire Department, with ample accommodations for the men and horses, and has a hose-drying tower, &c. The second story in height, and is provided with the necessary engine- and boiler-rooms, storage cellar, &c. This building makes a very neat appearance, and is an ornament to this part of the city.
THE FIRST VIRGINIA REGIMENT ARMORY.
This building has been stuccoed, the wood-work painted inside and out, new company-rooms fitted up, a gallery made over the hall is the second story, rooms wainscoted, and the walls plastered, and the entire building heated by steam. This work has just been completed. And the entire building takes a very neat appearance.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH.
Thin building is now located at the northeast corner of Grace and Madison streets, and is being rebuilt by the city. It was removed from the northeast corner of Tenth and Capitol streets to make room for the new City Hall. It will be a reproduction of the old building as near as possible, and will in every respect be a much better building than the old one, as it will be comparatively new in all of its parts.
Streets and Street Improvements in Richmond
The total number of miles of streets in the city are 103 1/4, improved as follows: Seven miles macadamized, 5.77 miles paved with cobble-stones, 7.75 miles paved with granite, 50.73 miles gravelled, 32 miles not graded; 68.61 miles sidewalks paved with brick (single lines), 90.80 miles gutters (single lines), 68.90 miles granite curbing (single lines), 25.84 miles sewers.
In 1881 and 1883 Main street from Eighth to Eighteenth was paved with Belgian blocks, at a cost of $43,257.20.
Shockoe creek from Broad to Franklin, in 1882, was walled in with solid granite walls, at a cost of $29,825.63.
Church-Hill avenue improvement, from Marshall and Twenty-first to M and Twenty-fifth, was commenced in 1878 and is now nearly completed. In doing this work the streets adjacent, intersecting, &c., were graded, thereby improving a large portion of the city which was prior to this but a waste ground.
There are nine stone bridges, one built in 1876, and seven wooden bridges, three built since 1873.
Approximate estimate of work done by the Engineer Department on the streets and sewers for 1884: 2,415 square yards new granite gutters; 15,498 square yards new granite paving; 10,800 square yards cobble gutters; 11,800 square yards new brick paving: 11.550 lineal feet new granite curbing; 2,142 square feet new granite flagging: 6,900 lineal feet sewers; 87,085 cubic yards grading; 24.414 square yards gravelling; costing, approximate, $90,000.
Capitol Grounds.
These grounds were acquired by the State of Virginia by condemnation about the year 1780, and embrace Lots 357. 405, 392, 417, 391, 393, 406, 367, 432, 431, 433, 366, 418, 381, 416, 403, 404, 390, 379, 430, 419, 380, 378, 369, 368, and 358, according to the plan of the city of Richmond, and are bounded by Capitol, Bank, Ninth. and Governor streets, and contain about 12 1/2 acres. These grounds were laid out as a public square soon after the property was obtained, and were enclosed during the administration of Governor Preston at a cost of over $20,000. The Capitol building is located on parts of Lots 391 and 392, the corner-stone of which was laid the 18th day of August, 1785.
The grounds have been greatly changed ns to walks, &c., since they were first laid off. They have three neat fountains, and contain the Capitol, the Washington monument, the Governor's mansion, and the Jackson statue. As at present they are beautifully laid off with wide walks, nicely gravelled, and plenty of large trees dotted over the grounds. They are kept in good order by the State, and are provided with ample benches.
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- Transcribed by Ray Bonis. As noted above, I tried to keep the text as original as possible which included the wording (and odd spelling) and often awkward grammar used by the original writer. You can compare the transcription to the original article by viewing it here.
ADMISSION: Orchestra $5.50 - - Grand Tier $5.00 - - Balcony $4.50 ----- Tickets on Sale at: THALHIMER'S, Downtown, GARY'S Willow Lawn, MUSIC CITY, Southside Plaza CHURCHILL RECORDS - BARKEY RECORDS BILL JONES, Petersburg
The poster was published by the Globe Poster Company of Baltimore known for their "colorful boxing style concert posters promoting the top R&B, Blues, and Rock & Roll touring acts" of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Heritage Auctions described the window card as a "fabulous presentation of Day-Glo pink and yellow, as was Globe Poster's trademark."
Steel Mill was formed by Bruce Springsteen in November of 1969. The excellent fan site BruceBase describes the band's history:
Steel Mill initially consisted of Bruce Springsteen (guitars & vocals), Vinnie Roslin (bass), Vini Lopez (drums) and Danny Federici (keyboards) and were formed in November 1969. Previously named Child, they decided to change to Steel Mill when another band released a record under the same name. In February 1970 Roslin left the band (his last performance with the group was on February 28) and was replaced by Steven Van Zandt, while vocalist Robbin Thompson joined on August 25, 1970. Thompson was previously lead singer of Mercy Flight. During September 1970, Mercy Flight drummer Dave Hazlett also substituted for Lopez while the latter sorted out legal issues. Springsteen announced his decision to leave the band in December 1970, and they played their final gig in January 1971 at the Upstage in Asbury Park. Springsteen went on to form The Bruce Springsteen Band later that year.
The concert at the Mosque where Steel Mill opened for Ike and Tina Turner is described by BruceBase as:
One show, double bill, with Steel Mill opening for headliner The Ike And Tina Turner Revue. A soul band and a progressive rock group were a strange billing combination, consequently, it’s perhaps not surprising that less than half the tickets to the 3,000-seat Mosque were sold. Former Back Door Club owner John Richardson, who orchestrated the event, has stated that he lost a fair chunk of money on this show. As undercard Steel Mill would have played about 60-70 minutes. The audio evidence supports reports that the venue was half empty. The crowd reaction to Steel Mill is polite but indifferent, an indicator the band wasn’t headlining. "Why'd You Do That" includes a customized refrain mentioning the town of Woodland Falls that seems to have been used only when playing in Virginia. "Goin’ Back To Georgia" features Bruce and Robbin Thompson alternating the lead vocal.
The band at the Mosque concert included Springsteen, Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Robbin Thompson, and Steven Van Zandt.
The website NJ.com quoted Springsteen talking about Richmond when he played a concert in May of 2014 at the Farm Bureau Live at the Virginia Beach (known to most as the "Virginia Beach Amphitheater."):
Back when New Jersey was where we could get paid, there was one other place. We would come down to Richmond, make a few dollars to keep us going.
So just a few months ago, we were at my godson's graduation [at VCU], got to spend a few days in Richmond. It's still very lovely, I went by the old Mosque. I opened for Ike and Tina Turner at the Mosque (with Steel Mill), many years ago, opened up for Chicago and Iron Butterfly (in Richmond). We had many, many shows of our own, that were supported very deeply by the audience in these parts.
Springsteen's early band Child is known to have played at least 4 shows in 1969 in Richmond. Steel Mill played at least 16 concerts in the Richmond area from November 1969 through October 1971.
When Tina Turner jumped on the stage last night at the Mosque while she danced and wailed, "Do You Like Good Music," she sent a crowded audience into a frenzy. And that's just what the Ike and Tina Turner Revue wants to do, said Ike before the show. "When we go on stage, we put our heart, body and soul into the audience. It's the people we want to please, not ourselves," he said.
The group, complete with three writhing Ikettes and the Kings of Rhythm orchestra, are more than a soulful, dynamic group. They've made the record charts for more than 10 years now, and they know how to please an audience.
"Feel the Vibrations"
Tina Turner makes the audience respond. When her raspy voice sung out Aretha Franklin's "Respect," the audience went wild clapping. According to Ike, who rages all of their songs, "When Tina sings, you can see her expressions and feel the vibrations she send."
Tina's voice quivered when she sang the bluesy, "I've Been Loving You Too Long." But the most powerful of the group's numbers was its newest single, "I Want to Take the Ikettes prancing the stage You Higher," with Tina and in sexually suggestive dance routines.
Tina even put big name groups to shame with her versions of the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" and the Beatles' "Come Together."
Ike, who said the Revue is trying to be a generation gap between rock and blues, doesn't like loud amplifiers for the group's music. "Our volume isn't close at all to the Steel Mill's [who came on earlier], but you'll be able to feel the vibrations as if the amplifiers were loud."
Steel Mill's music was too loud, although otherwise the group put on a fantastic hard rock show.
But the Revue caused the excitement.
CAROLE ROPER
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Music
By BARBARA GREEN
THE FLASHIEST, sassiest show within recent memory played last night at the Mosque in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. It's a combination of good rhythm and blues music and frantic choreography executed with precision. Star of the show is lead singer Tina Turner, who must be among the top three contenders for the title of "Sexiest Woman Alive."
She has a voice that ranges from a crooning caress to a husky growl, and she struts, stomps and shakes with wild abandon. Ike Turner, her guitar playing husband, is as cool as Tina is hot. He stands, tall and thin, in the background, occasionally feeding her the lyrics to songs or making jokes.
Tina is accompanied on songs and dances by the Ikettes, a female trio who somehow manage to keep up with the frantic pace she sets. Aided and abetted by a competent backup band, the principals did some of the most exciting renditions around of "Honky Tonk Woman," "Come Together." "Proud Mary" and "Land of a Thousand Dances." Tina even managed to make an old rhythm and blues classic "Oop Oop a Doo". sound fresh and new.
A final professional touch. was added in the lighting for the show and special effects. The lighting went from spots to backlights and more, and a strobe effect at the end of the show when Tina and the Ikettes undulated off stage leaving a trail of smoke fantastic.
On the bill with the revue was Steel Mill, a band that is quite popular locally.
The five members of the group are proficient rock musicians, but sometimes their music grows monotonous, with its incessant hard rhythm and repetition of phrases. Except for their hard-core fans in the large audience last night, most people bided their, time until Ike and Tina came on.
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A final review of the show is from the student newspaper of Randolph-Macon College located in Ashland, Virginia, about a 30-minute drive north of Richmond. Steel Mill played at the gymnasium of Randolph-Macon College on two dates in November of 1969. There was no review or advertisements for the Ike and Tina Turner 1970 concert at the Mosque in the Richmond Afro-American, the city's black newspaper at the time.
Tina Turner Tantalizes Throng
By R. A. Rankin, Yellow Jacket Associate Editor
A reviewer for the Richmond News-Leader referred to Tina Turner as being "... among the top three contenders for the title of Sexiest Woman Alive." After experiencing her performance, one wonders what the other two unnamed sex symbols would do for an encore.
Tina Turner is the featured performer for the Ike and Tina Turner Revue which appeared in Richmond at the Mosque on Sunday, October 11.
The single show, scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., finally got underway when Steel Mill took the stage at 8:15 p.m. The driving, churning music of this locally popular hard-rock group was undermined by a faulty sound system which alternately overpowered the audience with thunder or failed to pick up all of the musicians. Rather than warming up the audience as intended, Steel Mill's volume and the extended length of their performance forced many spectators to seek refuge in the lobby until the main show started.
Following a brief intermission during which the sound system was repaired, Ike-Turner brought the fans back to their seats with the smoothly pulsing rhythm of soul music as the Ikettes sang several short Supreme-type songs.
Finally Tina Turner exploded on stage at 10:15, and the audience felt a collective rush as she and the Ikettes unleashed a furious, fast-paced display of tightly coordinated movement. Tina's presence on stage turned the atmosphere to electricity; at last the show had begun.
Tina Turner on stage is the evocative incarnation of man's most erotic dreams. She commands the attention of every eye in the audience as she pours her soul into song, and as she churns the stage with erotic dynamics of dance.
With a voice that ranged from throaty, moaning, suggestions to vibrant, wailing, overwhelming power, she gave new meaning to work from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, and Ike Turner.
Tina Turner is not your average soul singer. Her style is her own, and inimitable. It is more than soul, it is part deep blues, and it is all sex. The message projected by Tina and reflected through the Ikettes is undisguised and unmistakable. You are in the presence of erupting WOMan.
There is none of the tinsely, superficial, put-on sex appeal of a Raquel Welch in Tina's approach... Hers is earthy honest outfront yet unoffensive. She conveys the image of a woman of deep passion through her performance who is proud of her emotion and her sex and enjoys being open and forthright about it.
The audience enjoyes it even more. Throughout her performance encouraging yells of "Right On, Tina" and "You Tell It, Sister," punctuated her message. A standing ovation from an entranced and exuberant packed house at the climactic finale testified to her power.
Without Tina Turner the Ike Turner Revue would just another soul show, good, solid, but indistinguishable from a hundred others. With her, a ticket to their concerts becomes an invitation to an audio-visual extravaganza with sex as the theme.
The October 1970 concert at the Mosque was one small step in the respective histories of Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner. Decades later, both musicians would find themselves described as cultural icons. In 1989, they were each inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one of many shared honors. In 2024, Springsteen toured again and will begin another world tour next year. Turner retired from performing in 2009 and died in May of 2023.
In concert, Springsteen often covered the Ike and Tina Turner song "It's Gonna Work Out Fine." Let's end this blog entry by listening to his performance with the E. Street Band from a concert in Atlanta on August 23, 1975.
- Ray, Dec., 2024
Visitors to Richmond’s Shockoe Valley have only a hint of what lies beneath the paving and cobblestones, the vacant lots, and the industrial wastelands north of Broad Street. The only indication is a series of large square drains on the floor of the valley. Many years ago, when this was a meadow between two hills, the rushing water of Shockoe Creek dominated the vista. Later, the creek was a constant problem for manufacturing and warehouses in the valley, flooding out of its banks and into basements and stores. Where Shockoe Creek once simply drained the watershed that splits the city, its path was finally channeled into a massive concrete tunnel that remains the central artery of Richmond’s wastewater system.
That enormous channel under Shockoe Valley was to play an
important part of what happened on July 15, 1965, although the weather forecast
for the afternoon gave no hint of the horror to come. “Variable cloudiness with
30 percent chance of showers. High around 90,” reported the Times-Dispatch.
The three Richmond City employees who stood in the middle of Patterson Avenue knew
the hazard of sudden flooding in the sewers where they worked. Nevertheless,
there didn’t seem to be much danger in either the forecast or the slightly
cloudy sky above on that Thursday. Unknown to the three men, a violent summer
rainstorm was building several miles away in the West End. James Messner, age
35, and Benny Whitlock, 47, descended on ropes to work on a new sewer
connection to a nearby home. Leroy Tyler, 28, stayed at street level at
Patterson and Belmont to keep an eye on traffic while passing down tools to the
men fifteen feet below the surface in the sewer.
Installation of the sewer line under Patterson Avenue. This
is the same 6’ pipeline where city workers were overtaken by water from a flash
flood 41 years after this photo was taken. Richmond Times-Dispatch, Aug.
10, 1924.
A rush of air from the manhole at Patterson and Belmont was probably the first indication that something was going terribly wrong. Tyler could hear an increasingly loud roaring noise followed by a wall of water that surged east down the sewer line under Patterson Avenue. Fifteen feet below where Tyler stood, Benny Whitlock was suddenly hit by the filthy water and managed to grab a rope dangling from the opening above. The force of the rushing water battered him against the curving walls, he lost his grip, and he was suddenly borne along down the concrete tube, now filled three-fourths to the ceiling. “The water was right up on them before they knew what hit them,” said the shocked supervisor of sewer maintenance. “This is the first time that anything like this has happened in the 40 years I’ve been here."
Whitlock was carried off in the darkness until he glimpsed another manhole opening in the ceiling of the sewer pipe and grabbed at it, managing a handhold. He was shocked by feeling Messner crash into him as he washed by in the darkness, almost causing Whitlock to lose his grip. He said he could hear Messner shouting as he was carried off into the terrifying, roaring, dark water, his voice growing more and more faint in the distance. Tyler, seeing everyone swept away by the water, ran to a nearby store and called the Richmond Fire Department. Firemen arrived and managed to get a thoroughly shaken Whitlock onto a ladder, out of the sewer, and up to the street. James Messner, however, was nowhere to be found.
A shaken Benny Whitlock stands, shivering and soaking wet, in Patterson Avenue after a desperate rescue from the sewer under the street. Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 16, 1965.
The firemen raced to the next manhole at Sheppard and Park Avenue, pulled the cover, and descended into the sewer. By that time the wall of water was already receding, making it easier to search for Messner with spotlights and to call out to him on megaphones. The firemen, wearing gas masks because of the danger of exposure to sewer gas, worked their way down Shepherd Street, opening manholes and descending, hoping to find that Messner had somehow resisted the rushing water and had found something to grab onto along the sewer as he swept by. They opened manholes all the way to where the sewer reached the next main in the 1100 block of Hermitage Road, and there it joined a mammoth tunnel that emptied into the river near 14th Street.
James Messner’s body was found near here, in the shadow of the I-95 bridge.
Friday, the search continued with firemen again entering the sewer system, a tugboat searching the river below the city, and others dragging the river near the enormous sewer opening. Two volunteers in an outboard boat joined the search, and they were the ones who discovered Messner’s body in the James River, sprawled on a sandbar near what is now the I-95 bridge. He was three miles away from where he descended into the manhole at Patterson and Belmont. Messner was buried in the cemetery at Hebron Baptist Church in King William County, his Death Certificate specifying the cause of death: “Drowning - due to flash-flood in sewer.”
James Messner
was a City of Richmond employee who died a dreadful, disorienting death,
drowning while tumbling helplessly in the stinking black darkness below the
streets. His sister noted on his grave marker he was “killed in the line of
duty.” Richmond’s first responders are usually thought of as
working in the most dangerous circumstances and occasionally being seriously
injured in the course of their duties. While his is not a sacrifice of the kind characterized
as “heroic,” Messner nevertheless did die while serving the people of Richmond.
As recently as September 2023 a City of Richmond employee named Derrick Christian
was crushed by a tree in Libby Hill Park. Christian, like James Messner, gave
their lives improving this city where we live, and deserve to not be forgotten.
-Selden
