Shockoe Bottom (also known historically as Shockoe Valley) is an area in
Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
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, just east of downtown, along the James River. Located between
Shockoe Hill
Shockoe Hill is one of several hills on which much of the oldest portion of the City of Richmond, Virginia, U.S., was built. It extends from the downtown area, including where the state capitol complex sits, north almost a mile to a point wher ...
and
Church Hill, Shockoe Bottom contains much of the land included in Colonel
William Mayo's 1737 plan of Richmond, making it one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.
History
Shockoe was named in the 1730
Tobacco Inspection Act
The Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730 (popularly known as the Tobacco Inspection Act) was a 1730 English law designed to improve the quality of tobacco exported from Colonial Virginia. Proposed by Virginia Lieutenant Governor Sir William Gooch, the ...
as the site of a tobacco inspection warehouse on land owned by
William Byrd II
William Byrd II (March 28, 1674August 26, 1744) was an American planter, lawyer, surveyor, author, and a man of letters. Born in Colonial Virginia, he was educated in London, where he practiced law. Upon his father's death, he returned to Virgi ...
. The area's development in the late 18th century was aided by move of the state capital to Richmond and the construction of Mayo's bridge in 1788 across the
James River
The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...
(ultimately succeeded by the modern
14th Street Bridge), as well as the siting of key tobacco industry structures, such as the public warehouse, tobacco scales, and the Federal
Customs House
A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...
in or near the district.
Throughout the 19th Century, Shockoe Bottom was the center of Richmond's commerce with ships pulling into port from the James River. Goods coming off these ships were warehoused and traded in Shockoe Valley.
Between the late 17th century and the end of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
in 1865, the area played a major role in the history of
slavery in the United States
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sl ...
, serving as the second largest slave trading center in the country, second to
. Profits from the trade in human beings fueled the creation of wealth for Southern whites and drove the economy in Richmond, leading 15th Street to be known as Wall Street in the antebellum period, with the surrounding blocks home to more than 69 slave dealers and auction houses. In 2006, archaeological excavations were begun on the former site of
Lumpkin's jail. Nearby, located at 15th and E Broad St., is the
Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, long used as a commercial parking lot, most recently by
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virgini ...
, a state institution. It was reclaimed in 2011 after a decade-long community organizing campaign, and today it is a memorial park, though part of the burial ground lies beneath Interstate Highway 95.
On the eve of the
fall of Richmond
The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the Siege of Petersburg, it was not a cla ...
to the Union Army in April 1865, evacuating Confederate forces were ordered to set fire to the city's tobacco warehouses. The fires spread, and completely destroyed Shockoe Slip and several other districts. The district was quickly rebuilt in the late 1860s, flourishing further in the 1870s, and forming much of its present historic building stock.
Architecturally, many of the buildings were constructed during the rebuilding following the Evacuation Fire of 1865, especially in a commercial variant of the
Italianate style
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
, including a 1909 fountain, dedicated to "one who loved animals." The buildings in the district, which historically housed a variety of offices, wholesale and retail establishments, are now primarily restaurants, shops, offices, and apartments.
It warehoused many of the city's goods, mostly tobacco. The district began declining in the 1920s, as other areas of the city rose in prominence with the advent of the automobile. Numerous structures would be demolished and cleared, including (in the 1950s), the
Tobacco Exchange
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the c ...
, which had been at the heart of the district.
Up until they moved from
Tobacco Row
Tobacco Row is a collection of tobacco warehouses and cigarette factories in Richmond, Virginia adjacent to the James River and Kanawha Canal near its eastern terminus at the head of navigation of the James River (Virginia), James River.
History ...
in the 1980s, the area was home to many of the country's largest tobacco companies.
Historic Landmarks
Shockoe Bottom is home to several historic sites and buildings:
* African Burial Ground
*
Edgar Allan Poe Museum
* Devil's Half Acre
* Lumkin's Jail
*
Mason's Hall, which was built between 1785 and 1787
* .Richmond Slave Trail
Redevelopment
After centuries of periodic flooding by the James River, development was greatly stimulated by the completion of Richmond's James River Flood Wall and the Canal Walk in 1995. The next flooding disaster came not from the river, but from
Hurricane Gaston, which brought extensive local tributary flooding along the basin of Shockoe Creek and did extensive damage to the area in 2004, with businesses being shut down and many buildings condemned.
A major boom in residential growth was created in the mid-1990s when old warehouses in Tobacco Row were converted into apartments. Since then, more vacant buildings have been replaced with residential dwellings and new ones have been built.
The
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...
named Shockoe Bottom one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2014 and a National Treasure shortly thereafter because of "Revitalize RVA," the controversial plan to construct a minor league baseball stadium, a national museum of slavery, a Hyatt hotel, a Kroger grocery store, and residential and commercial office space at the site.
In 2016 The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Dr. Max Page of the University of Massachusetts Center for Design Engagement, the
Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project and the
Richmond Slave Trail Commission began collaboration on an updated concept for the slave memorial.
In 2018, Shockoe Bottom was one of 16 projects awarded mines from the
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is a program formed in 2017 to aid stewards of Black cultural sites throughout the nation in preserving both physical landmarks, their material collections and associated narratives. It was organiz ...
.
As of 2020, there are ongoing efforts to construct a museum of slavery in the Shockoe Bottom that commemorates the Lumpkin's Slave Jail / Devil's Half-Acre site.
References
External links
River District News
{{National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia
National Register of Historic Places in Richmond, Virginia
Tobacco in the United States