#oldrichmond

Some of the buildings that survived the American Civil War in Richmond included an ironworks manufacturing site on the riverfront, which is now part of Richmond's American Civil War Museum. The ironworks produced half of the cannons used by the southern Confederacy, and was one of the reasons Richmond became the Confederacy's capital during the Civil War.

Dr. William Foushee was a prominent citizen and Richmond's first mayor when it became a city in 1782. He served as president of the company that built a canal to bypass the falls of the river, an important means of transporting goods in the pre-railroad era. A man of many accomplishments, he had been a physician during the Revolutionary War. He sold the grist mill in 1824 to his son-in-law, but the mill only lasted 8 more years.

Built in 1882-1883, this old Victorian Gothic pump house is located among canals from different time periods near the James River. It fell out of use as newer pump houses were constructed.

On the edge of the city limits stands this renovated farmhouse, located within in a mid-20th century neighborhood near a local shopping center (close to the corner of Cutshaw Ave. & Staples Mill Rd.). The farmhouse dates to 1910. It's one of those marvelous anachronistic finds, evidence of how this location was once a rural area west of the city.

Remains of an old granite quarry near the Japanese Garden. Note the bamboo growing above the rock formation.

Bandy Road (off of Three Chopt Rd.) is like a step back through time to when farms were located nearby. It also has a Civil War connection: it was formerly known as Battery Road. Today, it separates Bandy Field Nature Park from nearby residential homes.

The wall here is at the abutment of an old railroad bridge that formed part of the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad. The former bridge spanned the James River, connecting industrial and manufacturing locations on both sides of the river.

In the James River valley at Richmond, granite rocks are close to the surface. So you can see a number of old quarry sites, including small ones that were created by individual landowners. Most are from the 19th or early 20th century.