The Shockoe Examiner Blogging the History of Richmond, Virginia: Rare view of the Construction of the City Hall building of Richmond, Virginia, ca. 1887.

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Rare view of the Construction of the City Hall building of Richmond, Virginia, ca. 1887.

This image of the "Stonewall" Jackson statue in Capitol Square (unveiled in 1875, removed in 2026) shows a glimpse of the construction of what is now Old Richmond City Hall. The image is from a small publication entitled "Richmond Indelible Photographs" published in 1890. While the book was published in 1890, I determined that the image probably dates from about 1887 when construction on the City Hall building was begun.

The Shockoe Examiner published another rare view of the construction of the building several years ago. Here's a link to that blog post.

Image of the cover of the publication "Richmond Indelible Photographs" published in 1890. It was for sale on eBay in Sept. of 2026.

- Ray

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Contributors:

Ray Bonis:

Ray worked at VCU Libraries' James Branch Cabell Library from 1989 until 2021. He is the co-author of Virginia Commonwealth University (2006) and Greetings from Richmond (2009) - an architectural history of the city.

Selden Richardson:

Architectural historian and author of Built By Blacks: African American Architecture and Neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia (2006), The Tri-State Gang in Richmond: Murder and Robbery in the Great Depression. (2012), and Richmond Murder & Mayhem (2023)

On History:

"The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today...The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow."
-- G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) from his "Autobiography of an Historian," An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949).

Key Dates in Richmond History
(more to follow)

1737 – William Mayo laid out the original street plan for the town of Richmond on land provided by William Byrd II.

1742 – Chartered as a town

1780 – Virginia’s state capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond.

1782 – Incorporated as a city.

1788 - Virginia State Capitol building completed.

1860-1865 – Serves as capital of the Confederate States of America.

1910 - Manchester, the city located just south of the James, is consolidated with Richmond.

1949 - Oliver Hill (1907-2007) elected to City Council, first African American since Reconstruction.

1968 - Virginia Commonwealth University created by the merger of the Medical College of Virginia and Richmond Professional Institute.

1977 - Henry Marsh elected as first African American mayor of Richmond.

2009 – Shockoe Examiner founded.