From the Valentine website;
May 2 (2-4pm)
Manchster; Located south of the James River, Manchester was once a major port city and for three years was the county seat of Chesterfield. Incorporated into the city of Richmond in 1910, Manchester enjoyed a mid-century heyday and is now undergoing efforts to recapture its roots. Meet at Bankuet Place, 1129 Hull Street.

1 Day – 15 Sites – Priceless !
Civil War and Emancipation Day:the 150th Anniversaries
April 17, 2010 * 9:45 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

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Reposting from Historic Forest Hill;

Frederick “Bud” Hyland, a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright, designed a number of houses in the Forest Hill neighborhood. We’ve identified 2 of them; if you know of additional Hyland homes in the community, please let us know so we can include that information in our historic district nomination.

Mimi Sadler, an architect and historican who lives In Woodland Heights was kind enough to provide us with this article on Hyland’s work (click to download pdf).

Historic Forest Hill is working to help the Forest Hill Neighborhood get placed in the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

John Murden over at CHPN is master of maps and has a city wide map of all the Historic Districts in Richmond. I copied our chunk of the city including the area for the proposed Forest Hill Historic District.

Full Map and thanks again to John.

Did you know that the Manchester Courthouse is the only surviving public building in Manchester? RTD has pictures and more details:
The historic Manchester Courthouse in South Richmond is back in business, after a $23 million, court-ordered expansion.

City officials, judges and others gathered in Courtroom 1 yesterday to rededicate the 1872 courthouse as the Manchester General District Courts Building. The complex has three courtrooms and 58,000 square feet — more than double the previous size.

“We pray this building will be a place where justice will abound, where persons will be able to be judged, not by their color, not by their status, but rather by their citizenship,” Mayor Dwight C. Jones said.

John M. from CHPN sent us an ad from the Chronicling of America website with some details on the growth of Woodland Heights. “For safe investments or for ideal homesites, the best are found in Woodland Heights. This is no speculative proposition. It is solid and substantial, and values are based on Present conditions; not Distant Future possibilities.” The ad originally ran on Sunday August 6th, 1910 in the Times Dispatch. Below is a screen shot (click on the image to see full size) the whole newspage can be found here.

Previous Richmond Past Articles

Interesting description and detail about Forest Hill Park from the July 9th 1901 issue of the Richmond Dispatch.

Full page can be found here: Richmond Dispatch July 9, 1901

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I am a big fan of history so I was pleased to read that the Richmond Public Schools were one of six Virginia schools to receive a $1 million dollar grant to be used for a Teaching American History Academy II for K-12 teachers as well some additional programs including partnerships with American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, and the Virginia Holocaust Museum among others.  Good news for Richmond Public Schools and more importantly Richmond Public School students.

RPS Press Release:

Richmond Public Schools is one of six Virginia school districts to receive 2009 Teaching American History grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The nearly $1 million grant was announced July 14 by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

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The city council meets tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. and there is local item that might be of interest to some that live in the Springhill Old and Historic District.  The full agenda is here.

Res. No. 2009-R83 (Patron: Mayor Jones, By Request) – To reverse the decision of the Commission of Architectural Review denying *** Joseph W. Musgrave, to replace original wood windows with vinyl windows at ***600 West 20th Street in the Springhill Old and Historic District.

Res. No. 2009-R84 (Patron: Mayor Jones, By Request) – To affirm the decision of the Commission of Architectural Review denying *** Joseph W. Musgrave, to replace original wood windows with vinyl windows ***600 West 20th Street in the Springhill Old and Historic District.

Personally I am of the opinion that switching the windows from wood to vinyl would not ruin the historical integrity of a building. Thanks to John M. for pointing this out to me.

K.C. Howell former resident of Woodland Heights has done some marvelous research into a civil war fort that was right in our midst. Italicized text are my additions as are the images. Thanks K.C. for doing the research and letting us share this with the Hills and Heights Community. Click on any of the images to enlarge.

In the waning days of the Civil War, the confederate capital prepared defensive batteries around the city. Battery 14 was located in right here in Woodland Heights!

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The Alliance to Conserve Old Richmond Neighborhoods is sponsoring a Free Renovation Lending Workshop that will give you all of the financial tools you need for the renovation of a old house in a Richmond neighborhood. You will learn About 2 important subjects:

• Renovation Lending Programs
• How to Qualify for a Mortgage

Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Time: 6:00 – 8:30 pm

Where: Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, 4401 Forest Hill Ave, Richmond, VA 23225 Directions/Parking: At the corner of Forest Hill Avenue and W. 43rd Street in Westover Hills.

Take advantage of this opportunity to learn the ins and outs of home mortgage financing (including: loan programs, credit, cash required, cash sources, etc…). Then learn the benefits of renovation lending and how to buy a home in disrepair and fix it up using these unique loan programs. Additional topics covered include:

• Tax Benefits
• Energy Efficiency
• Market Equity and much more…

If you have any questions regarding this opportunity, please contact:

David Herring
Phone: (804) 644-5040
email: dherring@richmondneighborhoods.org

The official word is posted at RTD. Congrats to all those that put in the hard work. The official application is here and worth checking out.

The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has added the Woodland Heights neighborhood of South Richmond to the Virginia Landmarks Register.

Woodland Heights was among 29 new sites approved by the department after presentations last week.

Woodland Heights is an approximately 80-square-block area — bounded roughly by the river on the north, West 24th Street on the east, West 34th Street on the west and Bainbridge Street and Forest Hill Avenue on the south — that is one of the oldest streetcar suburbs in Richmond.

Woodland Heights also has an application pending for designation as a federal landmark, a process that is expected to produce a decision in the coming months.

We covered the final push to get Woodland Heights declared historical here. Today the Virginia Department of Historic Resources will consider the request for historic designation as will Federal authorities. Congratulations to Lee Shewmake and all the others that worked so hard to make this happen.

RTD has some information here.

Unlike local historic district designations, which give municipal governments the power to closely regulate building activities within zones, state and federal designations do not restrict owners’ use of their property. Instead, state and federal designations encourage preservation by allowing the districts to apply for grants and individual homeowners to apply for tax credits for renovation work.

“It just kind of gives you a leg up with those kinds of things,” said Woodland Heights resident S. Lee Shewmake, who works in finance and accounting and who led the designation effort.

The complete application can be found here and has some amazing details about the history of the neighborhood.

Full map of the area being designated is here. A few pictures of house representative of the neighborhood are here. Shout out to John M. for providing some links that I didn’t have.

One of the few blogs I actually read everyday is The Hat by Harry Kollatz Jr. at Richmond Magazine. It was nice to see a story on the Forest Hill Park lake restoration. J.R. Pope, director of the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation & Community Facilities introduced the two firms that will be leading the charge to restore the lake. Metropolitan Environmental Services which will be dealing the the silt and muck (not an actual scientific term) and Whitman, Requardt & Associates which will be handling the landscape. Another tidbit that was nice to know was that no work would be done on weekends so the Farmer’s Market will remain peaceful. I recommend checking out the post for the first picture alone. It took a lot of will power not to ‘borrow it” and post it on this site.

Richmond’s historic Forest Hill neighborhood owes its unique history to Forest Hill Park, former site of an amusement park, recreational lake and the Forest Hill Trolley. The rides were shuttered in the 1930′s, but the park remained a popular family destination for decades. Learn about current revitalization efforts and explore the beautiful neighborhood around the park.

Meet your guide at the Stone House in Forest Hill Park. $10 (Pay your guide on the day of the tour. ) Members: $5

May 16 (6-7:30pm)

http://www.richmondhistorycenter.com/walktour.asp

Retrace Abraham Lincoln’s steps on his visit to Richmond in April 1865, just a few days after the city’s fall to Union forces. As part of the bicentennial year celebrating Lincoln’s birth, the Valentine Richmond History Center, the National Park Service, the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, and the Library of Virginia present a two-day program that will consider the symbolic nature of the occasion that marked both the near-end of a bloody armed conflict and the promise of freedom for enslaved African Americans.

On Saturday, April 4, at the Library of Virginia, Dr. Lucas Morel, a Lincoln scholar and professor of politics at Washington and Lee University, will discuss the origins and implications of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Morel’s talk, “Lincoln, God, and Emancipation: A Promise Fulfilled,” starts at 2:00 PM.

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Test your knowledge of Richmond’s 400 year history. Take the I Know Richmond Quiz 3.0 and earn a free admission pass to the Valentine History Center or a ticket for an Historic Richmond walking tour! I had never seen this before stumbling on it at River City News but being a history geek was excited to jump right in but was disappointed with my 80% score.

That headline is bit misleading in that we don’t need all historians but just one or two who are willing to help Woodland Heights become designated Historical. Lee Shewmake with the help of neighbors has been working very hard to earn Woodland Heights this designation. Just last week she submitted the formal application which was a giant step and huge accomplishment. The battle is not over yet and a little help is needed.

What she is looking for is history on Riverside Drive and the Fonticello Mineral Springs Bottling Company.  This most likely will involve hitting the libraries, historical society and Valentine  museum, unless someone happened to do research for a class. If you would like to help out please contact Lee.

Update: Corrected pronouns.

Images courtesy of VCU Image Library

Close up of the swimming area which is not being rebuilt.

According to an email from Larry Miller of the Richmond Parks and Recreation Department the long awaited work to restore Forest Hill Park should begin mid to late March.  Pre-construction meetings will be occurring over the next few weeks and in a perfect world we should all be enjoying a restored Forest Hill Park lake in late summer. With any construction project it is Mother Nature who has the final say on  schedules so that late summer finish date is probably optimistic. Congratulations to all those that have worked to see this project through.

The land that we know as Forest Hill Park was purchased by the Richmond & Manchester Railway Co. in 1890. This was part of a general movement of the various Richmond trolley companies to spread out from the city core and service the housing developments the trolley companies had built outside of the city. The Forest Hill trolley built a terminus, amusement park and made dramatic changes to the Stone House. As you can see from the map below it was our own little Busch Gardens right here in the hills. The men were charged $.50 admission and ladies free on Wednesdays and only $.25 on Saturday. The booths listed would have sold food or been games including shooting galleries and bingo. Not shown on the map but mentioned in other documents is an airplane ride.

Below is the Dip the Dip roller coaster and penny arcade on the right.

Original image courtesy of Cook Collection, The Valentine Museum

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