Vintage Photos: Jackson Ward and Oregon Hill
VCU Libraries has digitally captured photos from the 1970’s of two Richmond districts. We’ve collected some of our favorites.
VCU Libraries has a free, public-accessible digital collection of photographs taken in Richmond throughout the mid 1970’s. The Richmond Architectural Survey Collection “contains data sheets that identify and evaluate over 600 building located throughout Jackson Ward and Oregon Hill neighborhoods.”
The evaluations were completed so that they could be used in both preservation plans and further city planning. Although intended for documental purposes, many of the photos evoke a nostalgic look at Richmond’s past.
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Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
These are great, thanks for posting! I used to live in that odd tract home in Oregon Hill at 236 S Pine. It’s right next to 195 and it looks like the highway is being built in that photo. Also the photo labeled “500 N 2nd” is actually the 700 block of N 2nd. The bank building is still there and a large office building out of frame to the left, but the rest of the block has been demolished.
These are great pictures.
A LOT OF HISTORY MY UNCLE & FATHER OWNED THE C & H GRILL!
Good stuff, always appreciate these sorts of articles!
Dear Paul:
I have done paintings of some of these locations, notably 16 through 22 West Jackson, of which I created a portfolio that has been partially scattered. I own the lesser, but larger, version of 308 Leigh Street; the other was sold by Eric Schindler Gallery, which has never divulged its whereabouts – or that of any painting it sold between 1996 – 1999.
I approached the Virginia Historical Society with the idea of mounting a kind of “Lost Richmond” exhibit, which would have included these paintings, among nearly eighty others. It declined.
I collaborated with curator Jon Zachman and the Richmond History Center, formerly the Valentine Museum, on an exhibition called “Painting the Town: Richmond Neighborhoods Past and Present”. It told the story of Richmond’s greatest growth periods as well as its precipitate decline in the post-Jim Crow/White Flight Era that began in the mid-Sixties. It opened in September of 1999 and ran for a full year.
If I am sounding like a relic myself, it’s probably no accident.
Thanks for bringing this photographic cache to our attention.
Sincerely,
Brett
Wow, pictures from the 70’s are considered vintage? I feel soooo old. Good pics though.
Thanks Brett and thank you to RVANews for uncovering this cache.