The History Is Elementary blog connects the dots with a post called Myths, Memories, and Music.
Hey, boys this is Hollywood. It ain’t home, but It’s home for good. We’d walk away from here if we could…never come back again.
And later in the song…..
Then General Pickett strode right up to me and in a troubled voice he said, “Ya’ll ain’t learned a damn thing from history….”
Former Oregon Hill resident Joan Cook Charles kindly sent in this advertisement (the picture includes her father Willie Cook):
Excerpt from Times Dispatch article:
Richmond’s fiery last days of the Civil War will immerse visitors in a new interactive version of history at the American Civil War Center when an $8 million fundraising campaign is complete.
The campaign announced today has already secured pledges of $6.3 million from board members and riverfront neighbors of the center at Historic Tredegar.
A total of $4 million in contributions will come from NewMarket Corp. and Bruce C. Gottwald, chairman of both the Tredegar board and NewMarket’s executive committee.
MeadWestvaco has made a $500,000 commitment.
The most obvious change to the museum property will be a $3 million building connecting the current exhibition space with administrative offices.
A 100-seat theater within the new building will present a $1.2 million production tentatively called “Richmond on Fire,” said Christy S. Coleman, president of the Civil War center. The 12- to 15-minute immersive experience, “where scholarship meets showmanship,” will involve all the senses, she said.
“It will tell the story of those harrowing days at the end of the war (when the waterfront was set on fire by departing Confederates) with the purpose of exploring how the nation got to this point. We want the visitor to … have a greater emotional connection when they go into the exhibits.”
A $450,000 working model of Tredegar Ironworks in 1865 will be built in an area where the Richmond Folk Festival has children’s activities. Other improvements in interpretation at the center will include $300,000 in exhibit upgrades and $200,000 for outdoor interpretation through mobile devices.
In partnership with the National Park Service and the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, the campaign also will provide $350,000 to create a Gateway Orientation Center in the Pattern Building.
One of the smile-producing additions will be a cannon made from the same mold that Tredegar used, said board member S. Buford Scott.
“We are hoping to fire this cannon at noon every day and remind Richmond we are the gateway of the Civil War and a place to visit,” Scott said.
Gottwald, in an announcement of the campaign, said people need to remember that Richmond was the focal point of a war that cost 625,000 American lives. “A substantial part of this disaster occurred right here, right within earshot of our city.
I meant to post this earlier- Richmond Magazine writer Harry Kollatz Jr. explaining how Pixar’s latest connects to a Richmond cemetery mausoleum, or how the American Civil War met Mars, or how…well, here’s an excerpt (but you should really just *click here* to read his entire post on John Carter craziness):
In Burroughs’ telling, a telegram of March 4, 1886, summoned him to the Hudson River cottage of his uncle, Capt. John Carter, in New York state. But Burroughs learned that Carter, the direct descendant of Robert “King” Carter (1663-1732) of Shirley Plantation and a Confederate cavalry officer, had died that morning. Burroughs discovered in the cottage’s safe his uncle’s will, a hefty manuscript and detailed burial instructions. In accordance with these, Burroughs writes, he removed the body to the “strange mausoleum in the old cemetery at Richmond.”
Among Richmond’s “old” graveyards were Shockoe Hill at Hospital and Second streets, opened in 1822, and Hollywood, laid out in 1848. Hollywood is the likely candidate for a “strange mausoleum.” (And the name is prophetic, considering that John Carter has finally gone Hollywood.)
The burial directions included that Carter be laid in an open casket and that “the ponderous mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault’s huge door be accessible only from the inside,” as Burroughs wrote in 1918.
(My guess is that none of these details are in the film; maybe if it had been adapted by a cable network and shot like a Merchant-Ivory production or the 1984 release Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan of the Apes.)
Weirder than Carter’s elaborate last wishes, though, were the papers he’d entrusted to Burroughs. The narrative within described 10 years of adventuring on Barsoom — otherwise known as Mars — fighting for and against four-armed green men and, after numerous battles, marrying “the ever beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium,” not to mention becoming the great friend of Barsoomian warrior Tars Tarkas. Carter became a prince of the house of Tardos Mors and jeddak (emperor) of Helium on Barsoom.
Burroughs, a failure in almost every pursuit, began submitting “edited portions” of Carter’s writings as serialized fictionalized shorts in pulp magazines in 1912. These stories accumulated into 11 books published between 1917 and 1964.
Cue the movie trailer:
From findagrave.com:
Birth: Jan. 24, 1843
Richmond
Richmond City
Virginia, USA
Death: Dec. 6, 1922
Charlottesville
Charlottesville City
Virginia, USA
Civil engineer; During the Civil War, Bolton served the Confederacy by helping to lay out defenses around Richmond, supervising and constructing the Piedmont Railroad from Danville, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina, and constructing and subsequently destroying a pontoon bridge over the Potomac River following the retreat from Gettysburg; Following the war, he designed a 600 foot railroad tunnel under Gamble’s Hill in Richmond (1866-1867) and a 4000 foot tunnel under Church Hill (1872-1873). From 1876 to 1879 he was in charge of constructing a canal around the cascades of the Columbia River in Oregon, and in 1907 supervised construction of two railroad tunnels in the Rocky Mountains in Montana.
The Laurel Street Methodist Church used to stand where Pleasants Park is now.
Here is some history, courtesy of Saint Andrew’s United Methodist Church:
Excerpt:
Saint Andrew’s United Methodist Church was born in 1968 through the union of the old Laurel Street Methodist Church from Richmond’s Oregon Hill and the new Grace Methodist Church in the West End of Henrico County.
Laurel Street Church was organized in October, 1849 and enjoyed a long history of faithful ministry. In 1888, Laurel Street helped to organize Monument Methodist Church at Park and Allen Avenues, and in 1896 it assisted in the formation of Byrd Park Methodist at Idlewood and Addison Streets. (Monument later merged, after a fire, ‘With Union Station to form Reveille Church, and Byrd Park relocated at the old Monument property to become Park Avenue Church.)
The Times Dispatch had a report on a recent Planning Commission meeting about the proposed 2nd Street Connector. It did not mention Oregon Hill citizens’ troubles with the project, but it did focus on concerns about what the road might mean for future use of the historic Kanawha Canal.
Excerpt:
The Richmond Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a final design for the estimated $1.3 million Second Street Connector despite concerns that the culvert may be too small to allow boats to pass if water flow could someday be restored to the canal.
“The purpose of the canal is to float boats. If we’re going to float boats on this canal, they’ve got to be able to pass this constriction,” said Jack Pearsall, who is trying to reignite interest in restoring a functional canal system stretching from Great Shiplock Park to Maymont.
Pearsall, who served on a Historic Richmond Foundation committee that studied the idea more than 20 years ago, estimated that the culvert would be about 12 feet high with only about 6 feet of clearance if water flow were restored. That means typical canal boats wouldn’t be able to pass, he said.
Meanwhile, C. Wayne Taylor has compiled some very interesting images of the canal area on his blog. They are well worth checking out. If nothing else, they give some perspective on how important this area has been to Richmond’s identity over the decades.
Which vision will City Council and City government ultimately align with, the citizens’ desire for a working, refurbished canal or another corporate driveway? Who does the City work for?
We have covered some trolley history here before, but this map may illuminate it further.
From Times Dispatch article:
The American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar is hosting a holiday ornament contest to decorate the center’s 7-foot tree. All ornaments must be handmade and include at least one item used on ornaments created during the Victorian era, such as paper, lace, ribbon or walnut shells. (Gilded walnuts were popular.)
The ornaments will be hung on the center’s tree, which will be on display in the museum store through the new year. One grand-prize winner will receive passes to visit Historic Tredegar. Runners-up will be featured online on Historic Tredegar-related websites.
Each ornament must have the entrant’s name, address and phone number attached to the item. The deadline for entries is Dec. 12. Drop off entries at the center’s museum store, 500 Tredegar St., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The winner will be announced Dec. 15.
For details, call (804) 780-1865, ext. 21, or email pcarringtonwallace@tredegar.org.
