“Jackson Ward Historic District,” 1978

 VCU Libraries’ Digital Collections houses an online version of the 1978 book, “The Jackson Ward Historic District”. This resource delves into the history of the famous Richmond neighborhood, as well as its architecture through text and photographs. Digital images scanned from the original photographic prints used for the book also are available on the web page for the collection.

“The Jackson Ward Historic District” Illustrated Cover Page

 “Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood is located on the northern edge of the downtown district. It was originally built by European immigrants attracted to and made prosperous by Richmond's status as a central retail hub. Freed slaves began moving into the neighborhood during Reconstruction, and by 1920 Jackson Ward was one of the most active and well-known centers of African-American life in the country” [Text taken from the VCU Libraries webpage].

Frequently referred to as a “Harlem of the South” and a “Black Wall Street”, Jackson Ward was a center for African-American businesses, entertainment, and activism. Tragically, after the construction of what is now a part of I-95 through the center of the neighborhood in the late 1950s, numerous buildings were destroyed and families displaced. Over time, many African American residents moved out of Jackson Ward due to desegregation and white flight creating availability in different neighborhoods. This left vacant properties to be targeted for destruction and replacement with new development projects- destroying much of the old character and charm of the district [Information summarized from VCU Libraries’ webpage]. Almost fifty years since the publication of “The Jackson Ward Historic District”, the area today has seen even more demolition and development of new projects. Various initiatives and projects–such as this resource–have been undertaken in order to promote the restoration and preservation of the area's past and importance as an African-American heritage center.

 As stated in the book’s introduction, “The importance of Jackson Ward today is threefold -- first, it is important because of its role in black cultural and economic history. Secondly, it is architecturally significant because of the unusual quality of its houses. It contains a full range of housing types popular in Richmond for much of the nineteenth century, as well as containing one of the finest collections of cast iron in the nation. Thirdly, Jackson Ward is important as a residential neighborhood. Its position is on the fringe of the central business district of Virginia's capital. It is a position providing both convenience to the center city and a prominent location” [Text from “The Jackson Ward Historic District”, pg. 5].

The digitized book on the VCU Libraries webpage is exactly as it was originally printed. With text written by Robert P. Winthrop and photographs taken by John G. Zehmer, “The Jackson Ward Historic District” is divided into five chapters. The first, “The History of Jackson Ward”, summarizes the story of the neighborhood and details important organizations and individuals who were crucial to its development. The second and third chapters of the book, “The Architecture of Jackson Ward” and “Typical Houses of the Ward”, survey the prominent architectural styles to influence the area as well as the various styles of homes found there- with accompanying images as examples. Chapter four, “Approaches to Preservation”, describes the different types of structural preservation that can be utilized, as well as the various methods needed to preserve and upkeep certain features and materials on the buildings. The final chapter, “A Catalog of Notable Buildings” comprises most of the book and provides photographs and descriptions of the features and histories of homes and businesses in Jackson Ward.

“The Jackson Ward Historic District” page for 100 Block East Leigh St. 

The digitized images in the VCU Collection are uncropped and include some additional photos not featured in the publication. The image descriptions provide extra information on the photograph as well as a map URL for the building’s location.

Hood Temple A.M.E. Zion Church, 16 West. Clay St. (1978)

Richmond Dairy, 201 West Marshall St. (1978)

- Gabrielle Dietrich, VCU undergraduate majoring in International Studies and French with a minor in History. She graduates in the Spring of 2024.

“The Downgrade:” A Very Richmond Kind of Murder

The 1950s was the golden age of trashy men’s magazines filled with adventure and daring and crime and sensation. The names of these publications were always eye-catching and lurid: True Detective, Inside Detective, Actual Detective, Front Page Detective, and Detective World were among the dozens of titles available to the reading public. The victims in these stories were usually young and innocent women, like the casual tennis player on the cover of the June 1954 issue of Official Detective Stories who is blithely passing an assailant with a gun hiding in the bushes.

 

The story of the murder of Mildred Townes was told in the June 1954 issue of Official Detective Stories.

 

Official Detective Stories magazine was unusual in that there was a radio program with the same name on the Mutual Radio Network. The stories both in print and on the air all had eye-catching titles, like “There She Was, Huddled in the Driveway…. Only Seventeen, Lovely, Young and Vital….” The editors of Official Detective Stories were careful to note where each crime took place in the table of contents. This technique, combined with advertising in local newspapers and echoed by promotion on the radio network created local excitement and readership.

The procedure seems to have been to assign a writer and a photographer to travel to the cities where crimes, usually against young women, had been committed. The local police would be brought into the story and could usually be depended on to coordinate with the Official Detective Stories staff. Just before publication, the upcoming story would be promoted. In the winter of 1954, Official Detective “Special Investigator” Richard Cornwall was sent to Richmond to look into the murder of Mildred Townes.

 

The home of Mildred and George Townes at 612 North 28^th Street. Official Detective Stories, June 1954.

 

Townes was a 29-year-old woman who lived at 612 North 28^th Street in Richmond and who was married to George Townes, who had been drafted into the Army the previous year and was serving at Fort Sheridan, Illinois.

 

 

A map showing the vanished streets on the western side of Richmond’s Union Hill neighborhood including Jay Street, where Mildred Townes’ body was found. From “Old Richmond Neighborhoods,” by Mary Wingfield Scott.

 

On the cold morning of February 11, 1954, Mildred’s body was found in an abandoned panel truck parked in a vacant lot on the corner of Jay Street and 17th Street. This intersection and the surrounding blocks of homes no longer exist as they were obliterated by the construction of the Martin Luther King Bridge and the Jefferson Townhouses in the late 1970s.

 

The ”death truck” where the body of Mildred Townes was found at 17^th and Jay Streets, February 12, 1954. Official Detective Stories, June 1954.

 

The man who killed her apparently moved Townes’ body as the corpse was first reported seen in a parked car before the murderer returned and moved it to the abandoned truck. This gave the Official Detective Stories “Special Investigator” the catchy hook he needed for the title of his article: “She Died Here – She Died There.”

 

 

The upcoming story of the Townes murder was promoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 19, 1954.

 

The story follows a classic police procedural track where world-weary Richmond Police detectives Clifford Brown and Floyd Wakefield are sent out to first inform the grieving mother and then conduct interviews and follow various clues. George Townes was eliminated as a suspect because of his Army alibi, but the detectives discovered he knew Mildred was seeing other men while he was away. An important witness came forward and said he had seen Mildred Townes in a heated argument with a man at the top of the “Downgrade.” In the Official Detective article, even one of the Richmond detectives (who you would expect to know the term) asks, “the Downgrade?”

 

 

This photo from the Mildred Townes murder article shows the steps called “the Downgrade” at the end of Carrington Street, marked by a white arrow. The photo is looking east from the end of Clay Street where the Confederate White House is located on the edge of the hill. Official Detective Stories, June 1954.

 

 

Richmond Detectives examine the top of “the Downgrade” stairs where Mildred Townes was last seen alive. Official Detective Stories, June 1954.

 

Richmond has always had to compensate for its dramatic topography, and the long stairs from Carrington Street to the valley floor below was not unique. Church Hill has several long sets of steps that give access to the top of the hill, and looping, horse-friendly roads were necessary to give access to Church Hill from the east. The Marshall Street Viaduct once even had an elevator that carried streetcar passengers up to the bridge deck from Shockoe Valley, seventy feet below. Richmond historian Mary Wingfield Scott described the western boundary of the Union Hill neighborhood as “the cliffs overlooking Shockoe Valley…” The term, “the Downgrade” may, however, be the product of Official Detective Stories Special Investigator Cornwall as no other reference for that name can be found nor is it mentioned in Richmond newspapers.

 

The description of the argument at the top of the stairs led police to issue a warrant for a man who apparently had no first name but was only known as “L.D. Gail.” A hint of both his scale and nature might be seen in his nickname, “Big Boss Man.” Gail was a 22-year-old who lived below “the Downgrade” on Seventeenth Street, and who was finally arrested in South Carolina and returned to Richmond. Gail (sometimes spelled “Gaile”) was convicted and sent to prison for 20 years for the murder of Mildred Townes. After Gail served his sentence, he died in 2003 at the age of 71 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

 

 The Evergreen Cemetery marker of the grave of L.D. “Big Boss Man” Gail. Findagrave.com

 

Mildred Townes was buried in Richmond’s Woodland Cemetery, but either her grave has not been found and recorded by volunteers or perhaps George Townes simply did not provide one for his unfaithful wife. Detectives Wakefield and Brown received an award from the Official Detective radio show in May of 1954 for their work on the Townes case. Special Investigator Cornwall moved on to another city and another crime.

Alert Richmond history enthusiasts who read where these people were buried probably already noted the one, single, glaring fact about the story of Mildred Townes, her husband George, and her murderer L.D. Gail. This would have been an element in the story that anybody reading it in Richmond would instantly know what was omitted by Official Detective: all these people were Black. Local newspapers clearly identified the Townes couple and L.D. Gail as “Negro” and “Colored,” but the magazine completely omitted the race of those involved. These crime magazines usually invariably ran photos of victims, but the only people who appeared in the images for the Townes article were the White Richmond detectives working on the case.

Someone made the editorial judgement that murder among Blacks was not interesting to the readership of Official Detective Stories who were accustomed to a steady diet of dead White coeds.  Rather than let a good story go to waste, that critical point was simply avoided. Readers in Richmond would immediately realize the omission, but even here the decision would be greeted as just one more peculiarity in a segregated society where race permeated every facet of life – even murder.

 

 

-Selden

 

 

 

 

  

“Broad St. Old and Historic District, Richmond, Virginia: Guidelines and Standards”, 1986

Colored drawings of ideally renovated West Broad St. 100 Odd block, 00 Odd block & 00 Even block

An informative and visually intriguing resource on Richmond architecture and design, “Broad St. Old and Historic District, Richmond, Virginia” was a guide for owners and developers of properties in this historic commercial area. Available online through VCU Libraries’ Digital Collections, this resource was published in 1986, through the joint efforts of the Historic Richmond Foundation, Richmond Renaissance, the Commission of Architectural Review, the Virginia Division of Historic Landmarks, and the Urban Design/Historic Preservation Section of the City of Richmond’s Department of Planning and Community Development. Old photographs from the publication are credited to the Valentine Museum. 

“The Broad Street Old and Historic District was designated on October 28, 1985, and initially spanned the area between Henry Street and First Street. After a 1995 district expansion, the District now covers more than 20 acres and 115 properties between Belvidere and First Streets in Richmond’s downtown” [Text taken from the VCU Libraries’ webpage].

The resource aims to provide guidelines and standards for renovations and design choices to preserve the unique architecture and character of the Broad St. Old and Historic District, and to encourage a well-kept and cohesive look. The document outlines the general characteristics that the structures share, as well as the different intensities of renovation options. Specific guidelines and standards for the architecture, accessories, and signs on the buildings are further elaborated upon. 

Guidelines and Standards page for Accessories and Signs

The rest of the publication displays each block of the district, with an old panoramic picture from the 1920s, a drawing of the proposed renovations for the buildings, and a modern photograph of the block. Underneath the images are blocks of text for each building with specific information on the building and recommendations. 

West Broad St. 100 Even Block

West Broad St. 100 Odd Block

Present-day design guidelines used for Richmond’s Old and Historic Districts can be found on the Commission of Architectural Review’s webpage on the Richmond Government website.

-- Gabrielle Dietrich, VCU undergraduate majoring in International Studies and French with a minor in History. She graduates in the Spring of 2024.

VUU’s Master Plan Erases Historic Richmond Community Hospital ---- The Shockoe Examiner Revisits Another Endangered Richmond Building

As part of its Mission Statement, Virginia Union University is clear about the importance of its historic foundation: “Virginia Union University is nourished by its African American heritage…” Unfortunately, this nourishment doesn’t seem to extend to buildings that still stand and are located on the VUU campus – like a hospital paid for and constructed by Richmond African Americans in a heartfelt appeal for desperately needed medical care in the depths of the Great Depression. The Shockoe Examiner took a look at this building on Overbrook Road, and the uniquely Richmond story of how it came into existence.

The history of the Richmond Community Hospital is reminiscent of that of Richmond’s Leigh Street Armory in that both buildings were held by entities who were completely indifferent to the importance of these places. Both buildings were subject to demolition by neglect – a technique with which institutions erase cultural heritage by a cynical process of slow rot, leading invariably to demolition “in the interest of public safety.” Both the hospital and the armory were born of a tidal wave of community support and fundraising among Richmond Blacks even in the conditions of this severely segregated city. Both buildings were literally built by Blacks.

 

The difference between what is now the Black History Museum on Leigh Street and the Richmond Community Hospital is that VUU has now abandoned all pretense of being the steward of an important and historic building. The “Master Plan” will simply sweep away historic fabric deemed inconvenient and cynically replace it with a sprawling campus of glass and chrome whose historic foundation, built on the sweat, money, and community of previous generations, will be destroyed.

 

The main entrance to the long-neglected Richmond Community Hospital building as it appears today.

 

Happily, the armory on Leigh Street was eventually reborn as the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. After standing as a roofless ruin for generations, the building is now recognized as an architectural gem. The museum within its walls has become an attraction for visitors to the City of Richmond as well as researchers interested in Richmond’s place in Black history and culture. The Black History Museum is one of the major sites in this city for African American heritage tourism. This dramatic turn of events only came to pass because of the vision and courage of the Board of the Black History Museum who saw the opportunity of creating an astonishing asset for the city. No such attention has been given the former Richmond Community Hospital, and it has languished, vacant, for decades under the “stewardship” of Virginia Union University, where successive University administrations have demonstrated neither vision nor courage.

On January 12, 2024, RichmondBizSense’s contributor Johnathan Spiers reported the announcement of VUU’s grand, 10-year, campus Master Plan, to cost $500,000,000.

In this scenario, the former Richmond Community Hospital building has disappeared, replaced with, as is so often the case, that engine of architectural obliteration and favorite landscape feature of unimaginative planners everywhere, a parking lot.

A Google Maps image of the western portion of the VUU campus. The red oval is the location of the former Richmond Community Hospital at 1209 Overbrook Road.

 

A detail of the recently released VUU 10-year Master Plan. In this vision of the future, where the hospital stood in the now-blank Overbrook Road frontage will be a parking lot.

 

 

In 2003, the freshly boarded-up hospital was going to be the home of the VUU “Community Development Corporation,” but that organization seems to no longer exist.

 

One of the many observers appalled by the deliberate deterioration of the hospital was a Shockoe Examiner reader who commented: “I was born in Richmond Community Hospital, as were many Black Americans of my generation in Richmond. It is disappointing that the current owners would prefer to demolish this historic building instead of restoring it and having it registered as a historic landmark.” Why VUU would not take advantage of the history of this building and proudly promote it as part of their future plans is not known. All institutions of higher learning need to grow to thrive, but with a proposed expenditure of half a billion dollars, surely some allowance can be made by a school that aspires to be one of Richmond’s leading African American institutions, rooted in its rich history.

 

An expression born in the Vietnam War was the heartless phrase, “we had to destroy the village to save it.” That same philosophy is apparently driving VUU and its attitude toward the school’s history. In an article published in Richmond BizSense on February 5, 2024, unknown “university officials” are quoted:

The executive mansion building would remain with the development, while the 1930s-era hospital building, which the university said is no longer usable, would apparently be razed to make way for the new buildings. Officials said the new development would “appropriately honor and commemorate” the hospital as the first black hospital in Richmond.

 

How can the words, “honor and commemorate” be used in defense of destroying the thing that is celebrated? What kind of honor is that? What type of commemoration is possible by the same people who ensured the complete erasure of the building that is being honored? Richmond’s long history is full of horrid ironies but this is among the most jarring.

 

“This is a concept, this is a plan, and there’s a huge amount of engagement that’s going to happen over the next several months,” said Grant Neely, VUU’s Vice President of University Relations, speaking of the new Master Plan. If that is true, then now is the time to act.

 

The President of Virginia Union University is Dr. Hakim J. Lucas, who in addition to his other duties is listed on the VUU website as “Executive Director of the Center for the Study of HBCUs” (the acronym for “Historic Black Colleges and Universities”). Emblematic of Dr. Lucas’ concern with the historic fabric of his campus, the link provided on the VUU site for his “Center of Study” is broken.

 

However, his email probably functions and his email address is HJLucas@VUU.EDU. Email Dr. Lucas and ask if he is at all aware of the history of the former Richmond Community Hospital and how it came into existence. Ask Dr. Lucas if the destruction of this once-vital African American historical site the is best thing for VUU, the surrounding city, and the historic foundation on which his university was once alleged to stand.

Recent articles on VUU's plans regarding the Richmond Community Hospital building:

RichmondBizSense: VUU lands $40M investment, plans up to 200 homes at Brook and Overbrook 

Richmond Free Press: VUU’s plan for$42M investment includes new housing, but not historic hospital

Richmond Free Press: Don’t pull plug on historic hospital, VUU

Richmond Times-Dispatch: RICHMOND COMMUNITY HOSPITAL - Michael Paul Williams: The old Community Hospital is Richmond's Black history. VUU should preserve it

 

 -Selden

 

Historic Fulton Oral History Project

 

“Fulton" (1952), from the Adolph B. Rice Studio Collection at Library of VA

Image taken from: Church Hill People’s News

Available through VCU Libraries’ Digital Collections, the Historic Fulton Oral History Project is a collection of interview audio recordings and their transcripts with the purpose of documenting and preserving the memory of the Historic Fulton neighborhood, which was located in Richmond’s East End. This project was developed in 2011 by the Virginia Local Initiatives Support Corporation, The Valentine, the Neighborhood Resource Center of Greater Fulton, and the Greater Fulton Legacy Work team.

“The Historic Fulton Oral History collection contains 17 interviews with 32 named interviewee participants. The interviewees are teachers, activists, clergy, and community leaders who grew up in the predominantly African-American Historic Fulton community in the 1930s through 1950s.” [Text taken from the VCU Libraries webpage].

An incredibly insightful and emotional collection, the interviewees tell stories about what it was like growing up and living in Fulton. Many of the participants fondly reminisce about their time in the community and emphasize the sentiment of family between residents. Former Fulton teacher and community member, Estelle Braxton Davis, states in her interview, “[...] we served, we worked as a community, neighbors were neighbors, and everybody was one family”. Though most families living in the community were considered low-income and many homes were without modern amenities, several of the interview participants expressed that they did not feel as if they grew up lacking. The interviewees describe Fulton as having been a self-sufficient and bustling urban center, with many successful Black-owned businesses and an array of educated and accomplished residents.

Furthermore, the interviewees were witnesses to the Fulton Urban Renewal Plan of the 1970s, which led to the destruction of the community’s structures and forced relocation of Fulton residents. Moreover, reconstruction did not start on the land until over a decade after the locality’s demolition and continued at a slow pace. Widely considered a failure due to the lack of timely development, this urban renewal project and the destruction of a historic community is a shameful stain on Richmond’s history. Many of the interviewees state that Fulton will never be what it once was, but they express their hopes for the future of the neighborhood. This oral history project is incredibly important to preserve Historic Fulton’s memory, as well as to combat the negative narratives about the former community. In 2020, ground was broken for a memorial park for Historic Fulton- which is located at 5001 Williamsburg Ave.

Here are some additional web pages with more information on Historic Fulton, as well as the damaging effects of urban renewal projects on Black Virginian communities: 

Style Weekly 2007 Cover Story on Historic Fulton “The Greatest Place on Earth”

Church Hill People’s News “Photographs of Old Fulton”

A People’s Guide “Historic Fulton Memorial Park”

Encyclopedia Virginia “Urban Renewal in Virginia”

 

-- Gabrielle Dietrich, VCU undergraduate majoring in International Studies and French with a minor in History. She graduates in the Spring of 2024.

VCU Libraries’ “Black Virginians, White Lenses: Images from the Cook Photograph Collection, Valentine Museum”

Assembled and provided by VCU Libraries’ Digital Collections, “Black Virginians, white lenses” is a selection of some 250 scanned images from the George and Huestis Cook Photograph Collection, housed in The Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia. George S. Cook (1819-1902) and Huestis P. Cook (1868-1951) were father and son, known for their extensive photographic documentation of Southern life. According to The Valentine’s Cook exhibition webpage, the family moved to Richmond in 1880, where George S. Cook opened a photography studio. The Cook Studio remained in operation until Huestis’ retirement in 1946.

“Baby Huestis Cook,” 1871. Cook Collection, Valentine Musuem. 

The Cook collection photographs chosen for “Black Virginians, white lenses” feature African Americans living in Richmond and other Central Virginia locations. This collection includes many portraits, as well as labor, school, and recreation scenes. 

“Most of these photographs, like others from this era, were posed or staged. They provide some insight into both Black life and white racist perceptions of that existence” [Text taken from VCU Libraries’ webpage on the collection].

This resource exhibits how photography may be used to perpetuate negative stereotypes or create a narrative around a subject. The pictures on the VCU Libraries’ webpage are captioned with the title of the photograph and some include an estimated date or location. Here are some of the images from the collection:

"Picnic in Bon Air, Virginia," 1880s, Cook Collection, Valentine Musuem.

"Man with Banjo," 1890s, Cook Collection, Valentine Musuem. 

"Boy with Watermelon on Doorstep," n.d., Cook Collection, Valentine Musuem. 

“Tobacco Factory: Drying Tobacco," 1920s, Cook Collection, Valentine Museum. 

Additional images from the Cook Collection centered around Richmond development and city life can be found on the Valentine webpage for their former exhibition, “Developing Richmond, Photographs from the Cook Studio”.​​ The Valentine’s full online database of the Cook Photograph Collection includes digitized images from the Cooks and affiliated Richmond photographers, in various locations in the American South circa 1861-circa 1930.

-- Gabrielle Dietrich, VCU undergraduate majoring in International Studies and French with a minor in History. She graduates in the Spring of 2024.