Tobacco Row is a collection of tobacco warehouses and cigarette factories in

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

, adjacent to the

James River and Kanawha Canal The James River and Kanawha Canal was a partially built canal in Virginia intended to facilitate shipments of passengers and freight by water between the western counties of Virginia and the coast. Ultimately its towpath became the roadbed for ...

near its eastern terminus at the

head of navigation The head of navigation is the farthest point above the mouth of a river that can be navigated by ships. Determining the head of navigation can be subjective on many streams, as the point may vary greatly with the size or the draft of the ship b ...

of the

James River The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers in Botetourt County U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowli ...

History

Beginning in the 18th century, many growers and shippers of Virginia's major cash-crop of

tobacco 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 ...

maintained facilities there, as well as directly across the river at

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. Substantial multi-story brick buildings were constructed to protect the contents from loss due to fire. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

(1861–1865), Tobacco Row was the site of the infamous

Libby Prison Libby Prison was a Confederate States of America, Confederate prison at Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. In 1862 it was designated to hold officer prisoners from the Union Army, taking in numbers from the nearby Seven Days battl ...

and nearby Castle Thunder, detention facilities of the

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

government. In 1925, WRVA radio, owned by

Larus and Brother Company Larus and Brother Company (1877–1968) was a diversified tobacco company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. The company manufactured pipe tobacco, cigarettes, and charcoal. It also operated local radio and television stations. History Charles ...

, went on the air, broadcasting from a studio located in a corner of their House of Edgeworth warehouse, with a tower mounted on the roof of the building.

Adaptive Reuse

The area was vacated by the tobacco companies by the late 1980s. Following completion of Richmond's James River Flood Wall in 1995, led by Richmond developer William H. Abeloff, many of the old warehouses of Tobacco Row were modernized and converted into developments of

loft apartment A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...

s, condominiums, offices, and retail space along part of the restored canal system. One of the warehouses is home to the Virginia Holocaust Museum. In the mid-2010s, the neighborhood was introduced to the extreme western portion of the

Virginia Capital Trail The Virginia Capital Trail (VCT) (informally, the ''Cap Trail'', or simply ''the Cap'') is a dedicated, paved bicycle and pedestrian trail crossing four counties and between Jamestown and Richmond, Virginia — that is, between the Colony o ...

References

External links

River Lofts at Tobacco Row
{{Richmond, Virginia neighborhoods Neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia James River (Virginia) Warehouse districts of the United States Economy of Richmond, Virginia History of Richmond, Virginia Tobacco buildings in the United States

History

Adaptive Reuse

See also

References

External links