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After the Revolutionary War, Richmond emerged an important industrial center; it also became a crossroads of transportation and commerce, much of this tied to its role as a major hub in the Transatlantic slave trade. George Washington proposed and received the support of the Virginia legislature for the establishment of the James River and Kanawha Canal, the first canal system to be established in the U.S. The canal allowed goods and services coming up the James River to be navigated around the falls at Richmond and connect Richmond and the eastern part of Virginia with the west. As a result, Richmond became home to some of the largest manufacturing facilities in the country, including iron works and flour mills, the largest facilities of their kind in the south. Canal traffic peaked in the 1860s and slowly gave way to railroads, allowing Richmond to become a major railroad crossroads, eventually including the site of the world’s first triple railroad crossing. The Canal officially ceased operations in the 1880s, spurring tourism and economic development along the old canal route in downtown Richmond. Read the rest of this entry »

The aversion to the slave trade was growing by the mid-nineteenth century, and in 1848, Henry “Box” Brown made history by having himself nailed into a small box and shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, escaping slavery to the land of freedom.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, the strategic location of the Tredegar Iron Works was one of the primary factors in the decision to make Richmond the Capital of the Confederacy in May 1861. From this arsenal came much of the Confederates’ heavy ordnance machinery. In February 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama. One month later Davis placed Richmond under martial law. Two months after Davis’ inauguration, the Confederate army fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Civil War had begun. Read the rest of this entry »