Annual Postcard Show and Sale, Nov. 13 and Nov. 14, Comfort Inn, 3200 W. Broad St.

Postcard image of the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church, ca. 1925.The history of Sixth Mount Zion is portrayed on this oversize card.The church is located at 14 W. Duval Street having barely survived the construction of the Richmond-Petersburg Pike (Interstate 95) in 1956.


The 32nd Annual show and Sale, Old Dominion Post Card Club, Friday November 13, 2009 (10 to 6), Saturday November 14 (10 to 5), at the Comfort Inn, 3200 W. Broad St. Richmond 804.359.4061

Members will display 25 to 30 exhibit panels which will be evaluated by a team of three judges and the public. The judges are Tom Boyd, long time post card collector and dealer from Florida; Maynee Cayton, with an academic background in art and printmaking, she has been owner of Bygones Vintage Clothing in Richmond for over 30 years; Charles McGuigan, founder, Publisher and Editor of North of the James, a sixteen year old Richmond monthly magazine, is a renaissance man with broad-based knowledge in history, writing, world affairs, art, politics, etc.

20 to 25 nationally known post card dealers will be present with millions of picture post cards for sale. Their stock will cover every era of post card history, from the late 1800's to the present. Every topic under the sun will be well represented in their offerings. Thousands of cards will be only 25 cents each. Most will be under $3.00 each. A few rarities will go for hundreds of dollars. Something for everyone.

This year the show coincides with the release of a much anticipated book, Greetings from Richmond, which explores Richmond's neighborhoods and architecture through early 20th Century picture post cards. The 145 page book includes the reproduction of 240 post cards in full color. Each card is accompanied by fully researched text. Greetings from Richmond will be available at the show. The authors, Ray Bonis and Tom Ray, will be present to sign copies. A limited number of Old Dominion Post Card Club T-shirts, designed to appeal to both post card collectors and the general public, will be available at the show. Show entrance fee is a $3.00 donation, good for both days.

For more information: contact Ernie White 804.262.5230 or Jim Adams 804.750.2535 or John Whiting 804.746.4710. Show and club details, including newsletters, history, etc. can be found at:

www.olddominionpcc.com

- Ray B.

VCU's Annual Architectural Symposium, Nov. 13, 2009

Smith and Anthony Stove Co. of Boston Trade Cards, 1880s
Special Collections and Archives, VCU Libraries
The Boston iron manufacturer is one of the topics
to be discussed at this year's Symposium.

Annual Architectural Studies Symposium
"Traditions--I"
Friday, 13 November, 2009
9:00 am - 3:30 pm
Virginia Historical Society,
428 North Boulevard,
Richmond, VA

The conference, directed by Professor Charles Brownell, will have four sessions. They will deal with the story of the "Palladian" window from the Ancient Near East to Richmond's Fan District; furniture classics in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and furniture made in Richmond; the art of ironwork, with special reference to VCU's nationally important collection of wrought and cast iron; and a "parade of white columns," from the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition of 1907 through more recent buildings inspired by Monticello.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, VCU's Special Collections and Archives, and a dozen other cultural institutions join the Department of Art History in sponsoring the event.

Admission is free to students, $8.00 per person for members of sponsoring institutions, and $10.00 per person for others. Reservations are necessary for a post-conference reception, at an additional charge of $15.00, and for a walking tour of Richmond wrought iron, at $10.00.

To register, please send checks, payable to VCU Conference, to Conference, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University, P.O. Box 843046, 922 West Franklin Street, Richmond, VA 23284-3046, by November 6. Brochures will be available in early Fall.

For a brochure or other information, please call 804/828-2784 or email Courtney Culbreth at cculbreth@vcu.edu.

You can download the brochure at this site.

Click here for a larger view - it lists who is speaking and the topic of their papers.

- Ray B.

Steamer Company Number Five building, Jackson Ward - A Brief History

Then and Now - the Steamer Company Number 5 building
in Jackson Ward - click on the images for larger views.

Jackson Ward’s Gallery Five was included in a recent article in The New York Times, “36 Hours in Richmond,” as being among our many attractions for the visitor. The photograph of the gallery that accompanied the article may have prompted readers all over the country to wonder what was the history of the ornate double bow Italianate building at 200 West Marshall Street.

There is a tradition of Richmond firehouses at Brook and Marshall since 1849, but the building that presently houses Gallery Five was constructed in 1883. Fortunately, the original drawings survive in the collection of the Library of Virginia. They depict a rather innovative multi-use design, and one that takes advantage of its challenging triangular lot. The structure originally housed the Third police precinct upstairs, while the men and equipment of the Richmond Fire Department’s Steamer Company Number 5 occupied the first floor. Access to the police station was originally up a stair just inside the front door, while fire engines returned to the station through a now closed rear door so they would again be positioned to roar out into Marshall Street.

Another contemporary view of Steamer Company Number 5

This municipal presence meant that for decades Steamer Company Number 5 was the one place in Jackson Ward that was alive and manned around the clock, whose windows were always alight and where help could always be found day and night. There would have always been firemen on duty, and until 1898, a continuous police presence upstairs with patrolmen going in and out on their rounds. It was a polling station and a lockup, with four jail cells in the back of the Third Precinct Station. Generations of residents of Jackson Ward would have relied on the services available at Brook and Marshall, reporting crimes and fires and a thousand other smaller problems of city life.

After the Third Precinct police staff eventually moved to (now demolished) quarters a few blocks away on Smith Street, the fire station served Jackson Ward until the fire company moved to more modern quarters on Leigh Street in 1968. Toward the end of its service to the city, the Steamer Company Number 5 building served as a food stamp distribution center. As such, it was the scene of shootout with shotgun-wielding robbers in 1971.

Vernon Jarrelle

Richmond Police Patrolman Vernon Jarrelle (a nephew of then Chief Frank Duling) was killed during the exchange of gunshots, but not before fatally wounding one of the three robbers who collapsed outside on the Marshall Street sidewalk.

Today, amid the changing gallery displays, Steamer Company Number 5 still bears some intimate traces of its history of service to the city of Richmond. The corrugated floor of the main bay still shows hard service under the steel hooves of the Fire Department horses, as do the windowsills that bear the marks of their nibbling. Traces of the stalls that held the horses at the ready to answer a fire call are visible on the walls.



Upstairs, the ghost marks of the jail cells that used to be in the rear of the building can still be seen on the ceiling. Its tall windows look out over a much-transformed Jackson Ward, but even after 126 years Steamer Company Number Five continues to be a commanding presence in the changing streetscape of Marshall Street.

- Selden R.

The building also served in the 1990s and early
2000s as the Virginia Fire & Police Museum.

Check out the National Register of Historic Places
nomination form for Steamer Company Number 5.

Records of the fire station are held in two different manuscript collections
at the Library of Virginia - click on the links below to learn more about those collections:

A Guide to the Virginia Fire and Police Museum Photographs, ca. 1875-ca. 1985
Library of Virginia

A Guide to the Virginia Fire and Police Museum Collection, 1879-1985
Library of Virginia

The Prestwould Apartment building, 612 W. Franklin St., image by Charles W. Smith, from Richmond Magazine, December, 1928.

The Prestwould Apartment building, 612 W. Franklin St.,
image by Charles W. Smith, from the Richmond Magazine, December, 1928.
Click for larger view.

We haven't posted in a while so here's a quick one of a great looking print of a building you may know. The Prestwould, built in 1927, was designed by English architect Alfred C. Bossom (1881-1965) whose offices were based in New York. The building stands at 612 W. Franklin St. opposite Monroe Park. Bossom designed several Richmond buildings, including Monroe Terrace Apartments (now VCU's Johnson Hall), built in 1912; the Virginia Trust Building, 821 E. Main St., built 1919; and the First National Bank Building, located at the corner of 9th and Main St., built 1911-1913.

We did an earlier entry on Smith and Richmond Magazine.

Richmond Magazine was published monthly by the Richmond Chamber of Commerce from 1914 through 1933. Many of the magazine's cover illustrations in the late 1920s and early 1930s were provided by Virginia artist and educator Charles W. Smith (1893-1987).

Smith was a graduate of the Corcoran Art School and of Yale’s School of Fine Art. After teaching at the University of Virginia and in New York, Smith moved to Richmond to work for the printing firm Whittet & Shepperson. In 1927 he was the first professional artist to be hired by the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health (later Richmond Professional Institute and now VCU) to teach art. This occurred a year before a full time art program was developed by Theresa Pollak (1899-2002). Smith became chair of the art department at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont in 1936. In 1947 until his retirement in 1963 he taught art and chaired the art department at the University of Virginia. He died in Charlottesville in 1987.

- Ray B.

Richmond's Leigh Street Armory in Jackson Ward is National Historic Landmark as of Sept. 19, 2009.

Click on image for larger view - from the Richmond Planet,
July 02, 1898 - click here to read the article.

Click to read the article - from the Richmond Times, Sept. 8, 1895.

See the whole page here.

History Fortified - from the 10/13/2009 issue of Style Weekly.

After years of neglect, the Leigh Street Armory wins historic landmark designation.
by Chris Dovi

Architectural historian Selden Richardson’s push to get the Leigh Street Armory on the National Register of Historic Places finally paid off. Now, he says, the real preservation begins. Photo by Scott Elmquist

The Leigh Street Armory in Jackson Ward may not have windows, floors, working utilities or even any immediate prospects, but it does have a new title: National Historic Landmark.

Selden Richardson, an architectural historian and author who’s worked for the armory’s preservation for nearly 15 years, wrote the landmark application for the 119-year-old, city-owned building and submitted it earlier this year. The national designation was granted Sept. 19, Richardson says.

The significance of winning the designation, he says, “is nothing,” because for all intents and purposes, “there doesn’t seem to be the will or the leadership in the city to rectify” the facility’s slow decay.

“It doesn’t protect the building in any way,” Richardson says of the federal designation. “The entire purpose in seeking the recognition was to try to draw attention to this building and its place.”

The building has drawn plenty of attention in the past. Various proposals through the decades would have repurposed the building and restored it. The building’s housed a public school and a World War II-era facility for black GI’s on rest and relaxation. Its last occupant was the Black History Museum, which left in the late 1970s after a fire burned a hole in the roof and left the interior exposed to the elements. Its interior is in decay because of lack of maintenance.

“The city basically locked the doors and left it,” Richardson says of a condition that continued until efforts to stabilize the building and protect it succeeded in the late 1990s.

Despite the years of neglect, the armory is one of three such buildings remaining in the city. All date to about the same late-19th-century period, but Leigh Street also is one of just three such armories remaining nationally that were built specifically to house black military units.

“The construction of this building signaled parity with other white organizations in the city,” Richardson says, explaining the old militia system that predated the modern National Guard. “There were five armories in town at the time, four of them being white. This was just a generation after the Civil War and this was an incredibly important organization for blacks.”

Nearly all past efforts to repurpose it have ended because there was lack of agreement within the Jackson Ward community about an appropriate new owner or use.

“This building is unique in that it sits at the intersecting lines of African-American history and bad city leadership,” Richardson says.

-- Ray B.

Read the nomination HERE.

Learn more about the Leigh Street Armory here

- from the Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary - RICHMOND

The Biograph Theatre, 1972-1987.

The Biograph - 814 W. Grace St.

Do you Remember the Biograph Theatre? It was THE alternative movie house in Richmond from 1972 through 1987. It stood at 814 W. Grace St. - located inches from VCU. It was a haven for film fans. I have many great memories of going to the Biograph - some of which were brought back by visiting two web sites created by writer/illustrator/free speech advocate F.T. Rea, the manager of the Biograph from 1972-1983. Check out Terry's blogs: the Biograph Archives and SLANTblog - both of which have recent posts that include links to videos of Richmond's past.

What are your memories of The Biograph?

- Ray B.

Very neat Blog on the Architectural History of 811-819 S. Cathedral Place, built in the 1880s.

Shafer's Row, 811-819 S. Cathedral Place (originally Floyd Ave)
- directly across the street from the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.

Jessica Bankston, an independent marketing director here in Richmond, has created a great blog for her graduate level architectural history class at VCU. It focuses on her research of the row of houses located at 811-819 S. Cathedral Place. The buildings, often referred to as "Shafer's Row," were built in the 1880s by wealthy land developer John C. Shafer, a 19th century merchant whose house stood where VCU's Hibbs Hall stands today on Shafer Street (its where VCU got the name Shafer Court, the center of its Monroe Park Campus).

The blog is called "Uncovering 811-819 S. Cathedral Place, Richmond, VA: Chronicling discoveries on the historic row across from Cathedral of the Sacred Heart
 You may want see more of this site is as she documents her ongoing discoveries on the various architectural features of these houses - especially her research on the the decorative mill work and door hardware. She gets some tips on sources from her professor, Dr. Charles Brownell, head of VCU's Architectural History program (more on Dr. Brownell's annual Architectural Symposium in a upcoming blog entry). But most of what she has found has been by solid research - including contacting such local firms like the Siewers Lumber and Millwork company.

Jessica is a great example of the superior, hard working students who have worked with Dr. Brownell at VCU for nearly 20 years. Let's hope she posts her final paper on the site.

- Ray B.

Emancipation Day Parade, Richmond, Virginia, April 3, 1905

Emancipation Day Parade, Richmond, Virginia, Monday, April 3, 1905.
[click for larger view]

The image above shows a parade of Richmond, Virginia's African Americans celebrating Emancipation Day, Monday, April 3, 1905. The parade is shown here marching at 10th and Main Streets with the Shafer Building at the corner and the old Custom House and Richmond Post Office building in the background. It was one of the few buildings to survive the evacuation fire of 1865. To the right of that building is the Mutual Assurance Society Building. The parade marked the fall of Richmond and not the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.


This black and white image was originally taken by the Detroit Publishing Company which produced postcards. I haven't seen this image converted to a postcard. That would be a rare find. The image is from the Library of Congress. For more information about the event, read the two newspaper accounts below.

Below is an image of that same block with a completely different parade circa 1910. Maybe this street was used often for parades. 

Circus parade on Main Street in Richmond, VA. - circa 1910.

[The text below is from the Richmond Planet, Saturday, April 8, 1905. The Richmond Planet was the city's major African American newspaper. It began publishing in the mid 1880s and continued through 1935. For more information about the Richmond Planet and its longtime editor, John Mithchell Jr., the Library of Virginia has an online exhibit entitled "Born in the Wake of Freedom: John Mitchell, Jr., and the Richmond Planet."]

Richmond Planet, April 8, 1905. Emancipation Celebration

The colored people of this city celebrated the fortieth year of their emancipation on last Monday with a large parade. Excursionists from other cities swelled the crowd and five bands of music mustered into service. The gathering was orderly. The day was an ideal one and the exercises were conducted at the Broad St. Base-ball Park. The grand-stand gave way and partly collapsed, but this inconvenience was only temporary. Rev. D. W. Davis, A.M., was orator of the day and his effort was an eloquent one. Major J.B. Johnson, the military leader and tactician was Chief Marshall and he handled the line with skill and ability. The line of march was shortened considerably and the Church-Hill route was abandoned Mr. J.C. Randolph was president and Lawyer J. Thos. Hewin, secretary. The affair was a success and the best of good-feeling prevailed. Capt. Benjamin Scott, who was elected president during the early stages of the affair was in a carriage and many were disappointed at not seeing him on horse-back.
-- From the Richmond Planet, Saturday, April 8, 1905.





[Text below is taken from the Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, Tuesday, April 4, 1905.]

Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, April 4, 1905.

CELEBRATION OF DAY OF FREEDOM

Negroes Cheered "Dixie" on Their Emancipation Anniversary. Nearly every colored man, woman and child in Richmond, and the surrounding territory, took part in or viewed the big emancipation parade yesterday.

The crowd was orderly and was the subject of favorable comments from all who saw the line as it passed along to the music from several bands. The parade consumed something like twenty minutes in passing a given point, and was made up of various negro clubs and societies. An amusing incident was the cheering of "Dixie" on this occasion.

After the principal streets of the city had been marched over the crowds centered in the ball park, where the orators addressed the multitude on the subject most in mind. The principal speaker was D. Webster Davis, whose oration was the other speaker. During the speaking a board on the bleacheries broke and caused a little excitement, but no one was hurt. Closed With a Banquet Last night there was banquet of the leaders at Price's Hall, and at True Reformer's Hall a colored opera company held forth. The colored hotels and boarding houses were full to overflowing with excursionists and the ward was a dense mass of people all day and far into the night.

The thousands of local colored people on the streets were augmented by many from the country, who, in their gay rigs, added to the general interest in the parade. Old darkeys, with ante-bellum beards, marched beside negroes of the younger generation, and cooks, waiters, porters, washerwomen and barbers knocked off from work to join in the festivities incidental to the celebration of the day that really marks the fall of Richmond rather than the negroes emancipation.

Late in the afternoon a party of disorderly negroes got in a fight on Cary Street between Seventh and Eighth Streets. The row created some excitement, and four of the negroes were arrested and carried to the Second Station. The men engaged in the fight were on holiday and it was stated that the fight arose over comments on the parade. This was the only affair of the kind that marred one of the largest negro demonstrations the city ever saw.

--- From the Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, Tuesday, April 4, 1905.

- Ray

Image of Main Street, Richmond Times, August 18, 1901.

From the Chronicling America web site - check out this great image of Main Street from the Richmond Times, August 18, 1901. I've never seen this published before. Nor have I figured out what block this is. I assume we're looking west - maybe near 9th Street?

Click here to see the entire page.

Click for larger view.

Click for larger view.

Click for larger view.

Broad Street As Seen Through Vintage Postcards

Broad Street, Richmond, Va.
Click on images for larger views.

Why Can't Our City Come Alive Again?
For more images of Richmond from the past visit Rarely Seen Richmond.

- Ray B.

The Hidden Chimbarazo Beer Vaults in Richmond

This undated plan from the collections of the Library of Virginia shows the
extensive rooms of the beer vaults and the octagon in pencil which is the
park house above it.  Notice the dimensions of the underground rooms and
elaborate stairway which once gave access to them.

Many Richmonders have probably heard of the “beer vaults” that are somewhere under the park, but few know of their history or how extensive they are. A pencil and ink plan from the City Engineer’s office records in the archives of the Library of Virginia shows the position of the vaults and describes their considerable dimensions: six chambers, ranging from 30 to 60 feet long and arranged in a “L” pattern. The vaulted ceilings are approximately twenty feet tall. Considering a GRTC bus is about forty feet long, the large scale of these underground rooms is truly impressive.

An octagon sketched in pencil over the vaults presumably indicates the position of the park house directly above the brick rooms, which are drawn in red. An elaborate stairway with landings once served as access to the two entrances. The plan also notes the locations of a public spring (which still exists) below the park house, and a horse trough, both of which were to provide refreshment to horses and men making their way up the switchback road that wound between Fulton and Broad Street. The road is labeled “30 Foot Road Leading to Tunnel,” a reference to the famous Church Hill railroad tunnel which collapsed in 1925.

A large circular structure shown in the plan of the vaults on the very brink of the hillside remained a mystery until a newspaper clipping from 1941 was found that explained, “…the original vat used for brewing by Mr. Bacher stood just outside the entrance to the vaults but that was torn down some years ago.” The article goes on to defuse a proposal by Richmond City Council member Emmett Perkinson to use the vaults as an air raid shelter. More about Church Hill's history and Joseph Bacher HERE.

This photograph of the interior of one of the beer vaults, taken in the
1940s, gives an idea of the scale of these large storage rooms below the
surface of Chimbarazo Park.

According to that article, the vaults and vat were used by Bacher, “a Pennsylvania brewer who come to Richmond soon after the Civil War” and unsuccessfully used the vaults for laagering, or cold storage of beer. Finding the temperature too high for this part of the brewing process (perhaps because the vaults were so close to the surface), Bacher abandoned his efforts.

Photographs taken inside the vaults on the rare occasions that they have been opened show the astonishing brickwork and soaring, vaulted ceilings.

The Chimbarazo park house, which is located directly above the brick-lined
beer vaults.  In the foreground, the new steps, sidewalk and patch in the
roadway mark the location of a cave-in of one of the vaults and the
subsequent repair.

For one hundred forty years the vaults have brooded quietly and kept their dark secrets. Tropical Storm Gaston in 2004 caused a cave-in in a corner of one of the rooms, revealing a tantalizing view of the top of a brick arch and a black void beyond. The City Department of Parks quickly refilled the hole (which threatened to collapse the steps to the park house) and paved over the exposed top of the vaulted chamber below. The sound and light receded once again, and the dark and quiet resumed their dominion over the Chimbarazo beer vaults.

- Selden Richardson.

U of R Digital Scholarship Lab Works Digital Historical Wonders

U of R Digital Scholarship Lab Works Digital Historical Wonders
One of the many revelations at the Future of Richmond’s Past program http://theshockoeexaminer.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html was the unveiling of a virtual model of Richmond’s slavery sales district. This impressive reconstruction, compiled using old city directories, insurance atlases, drawings, and photographs, is the latest digital historical wonder created by the University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab -http://digitalscholarship.richmond.edu/. This virtual reconstruction allows the viewer to move through the dense urban environment once situated on the banks of Shockoe Creek, where human trafficking took place openly on a large scale. It will undoubtedly be an important contribution to the planning effort for Shockoe Valley getting underway by the City of Richmond. Unfortunately, we must wait to see this impressive digital reconstruction on line.

However, right now Richmond History enthusiasts in general, and residents and students of older neighborhoods in particular, can become acquainted with the fascinating and informative Redlining Richmond project - http://americanpast.richmond.edu/holc/. The introduction to this informative site explains how the Federal Government inventoried Richmond neighborhoods based on risk in the 1930’s. The term “redlining” comes from the fact that neighborhoods with the highest investment risks were highlighted in red on the inventory data map. On the Redlining Richmond project digitized base map, icons are linked to neighborhood profiles. The profiles contain interesting neighborhood data and evaluations that reflect the class and race biases of the period.

It is to be hoped, the Examiner will, in short order be able to chronicle more great digital Richmond history projects from U of R.
TP

P. S.
1. I am sorry I have been such a laggard at posting. I have a lot of work to do to keep up with the quality and quantity of Ray’s posts.
2. If you like this site let us know.