Richmond Main Street Station

Lumpkin's Jail, also known as "the Devil's half acre", was a holding facility, or slave jail, located in Richmond, Virginia, just three blocks from the state capitol building. More than five dozen firms traded in enslaved human beings within blocks of Richmond's Wall Street (now 15th Street) between 14th and 18th Streets between the 1830s and the end of the American Civil War. Its final and most notorious owner, Robert Lumpkin, bought and sold slaves throughout the South for well over twenty years, and Lumpkin's Jail became Richmond's largest slave-holding facility.

Castle Thunder, located between what is now 17th Street and 18th Street on northern side of E Cary Street in Richmond, Virginia, was a former tobacco warehouse, located on Tobacco Row, converted into a prison used by the Confederacy to house civilian prisoners, including captured Union spies, political prisoners and those charged with treason during the American Civil War. A large number of its inmates were sentenced to death. Even though the inmates were sometimes allowed boxes of medicine and other supplies, the prison guards had a reputation for brutality.The prison's most notorious commandant was Captain George W. Alexander. As a Confederate soldier fighting in Maryland, Alexander was captured in 1861. While awaiting execution by the Union Army, he escaped and fled to Richmond. Once in Richmond, Alexander took command of the Castle Thunder Prison. Security at the prison was intense under Alexander. Prisoners are said to have complained of Alexander's brutality. Those held in the prison as spies, criminals, or charged with treason were said to have been treated with unnecessary brutality by the guards. The unsavory reputation of the prison obliged the Confederate House of Representatives in 1863 to order an investigation of the commandant, Capt. George W. Alexander, who had been accused of "harshness, inhumanity, tyranny, and dishonesty". Alexander was eventually cleared of the charges, partially by citing the hard-bitten character of the inmates as justification for his behavior.Among its many notable occupants was Union officer William Jackson Palmer (1836–1909). In 1862, he was captured while scouting after the Battle of Antietam within Confederate lines in civilian clothes while gathering information for General George McClellan. When questioned he gave his name as W.J. Peters, and claimed to be a mine owner on an inspection trip. While the Confederates did not know he was a spy, his circumstances were suspicious and he was detained and sent to Richmond, Virginia, for detention at Castle Thunder. He was set free in a prisoner exchange and rejoined his regiment in February, 1863. Another held for a time in this prison was Dr. Mary E. Walker, the only woman who ever received the Medal of Honor.After the Union forces captured Richmond, they used the prison for similar purposes. Among those known to have been incarcerated there in this later period was Mollie Bean, a woman who had served for two years in the 47th North Carolina and was twice wounded in action. She had pretended to be a man simply in order to join the Confederate Army, but her Union captors suspected her of being a spy. President Jefferson Davis is reported to have said for every Confederate sailor hanged he would hang a Union soldier of corresponding rank, chosen by lot from among the thousands of prisoners in the Richmond tobacco warehouse. A fire in 1879 destroyed the Civil War–era prison Castle Thunder in its entirety.

Masons' Hall, located in the Shockoe Bottom neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia was built during 1785 to 1787 by Richmond Lodge No. 13 (which in 1786 was renumbered Richmond Lodge No.10. and continues to exist). The building is still the active home of and owned by Richmond Randolph Lodge No.19 who have met in their third floor lodge room continuously since Masons’ Hall was completed in 1787. It was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, or (African Burial Ground in Shockoe Bottom) known historically as the "Burial Ground for Negroes", is the older of two municipal burial grounds established for the interment of free people of color and the enslaved in the city of Richmond, Virginia. It is located at 1554 E Broad St. (alternate address 1520 E Marshall St.), across from the site of Lumpkin's Jail, in Shockoe Bottom. The area now known as Shockoe Bottom, was historically known as Shockoe Valley. Richmond's second African Burial Ground, called the "Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground" is the larger of the two burial grounds, and is located a mile and a half away at 1305 N 5th St, on Shockoe Hill.

The First Freedom Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit located in Richmond, Virginia. Its mission is to commemorate and educate about freedom of religion and conscience as proclaimed in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Located in the Shockoe Slip district of downtown Richmond, the Center sits on the site where Jefferson's statute was enacted into law by the Virginia General Assembly on January 16, 1786. Championed through the Virginia General Assembly by James Madison, the statute was the first law of absolute religious freedom enacted in the young nation and served as a template for the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would be ratified five years later (1791).

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 a rail line following the same course. Encouraged by George Washington, the canal project was begun in 1785 as the James River Company, and later restarted under the James River and Kanawha Canal Company. It was an expensive project which failed several times financially and was frequently damaged by floods. Though largely financed by the Commonwealth of Virginia through the Virginia Board of Public Works, it was only half completed by 1851, reaching Buchanan, in Botetourt County. When work to extend it further west stopped permanently, railroads were overtaking the canal as a far more productive mode of transportation. After the American Civil War funds for resuming construction were unavailable from either the war-torn Commonwealth or private sources and the project did poorly against railroad competition, finally succumbing to damage done by massive flooding in 1877. In the end its right-of-way was bought and the canal was largely dismantled by the new Richmond and Alleghany Railroad, which laid tracks on the former towpath. The R&A became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in the 1890s, which developed much of the former canal route into an important line for West Virginia bituminous coal headed eastbound for the Peninsula Extension to reach the Hampton Roads coal piers at Newport News for worldwide export aboard large colliers.

The Southern Railway Depot on 14th Street in Richmond, Virginia, was a passenger station for the Southern Railway that operated from 1900 to 1914. Another name of this depot was Mill Street Station. Previously, the Southern had operated its Richmond passenger service out of an old Richmond and Danville Railroad wooden frame depot that laid about 600 feet south of the 14th Street Depot. This depot had been constructed around 1865–1866 to replace the one built in the early 1850s and burnt in the Fall of Richmond in April 1865. The original R&D depot had been the departure station for the train carrying Confederacy Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to Danville immediately before Richmond fell to the Union Army during the Civil War. Around the turn of century, the railroad initialized plans to replace the old R&D depot with a new one constructed of brick and granite. They hired architect Frank Pierce Milburn to design it and awarded the contract to Frederick "Fritz" Sitterding. In the railroad journal, The Railway Surgeon, an intricate description is given of the depot: "The building will be of granite and gray pressed brick, with a green slate roof. it will have a 70-foot frontage on Mill street and 175 feet on Fourteenth street, with a 100-foot tower on the corner. The arrangement of the interior will be simple and convenient, with an entrance through a vestibule on Mill street, and beneath the tower. Ticket offices will be located at the right of the entrance, and at the north end of the waiting room and adjoining the vestibule will be situated the ladies' parlor. At the extreme south end of the waiting room will be a room for colored people, with a hallway between connecting with the baggage and express rooms. The waiting room will be 40 by 50 feet, finished in chestnut, with frescoed walls and ceilings and marble tiling floor."Construction was finished in 1900. In 1914, the Southern decided to split its passenger services into two stations: one at Main Street Station (owned by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway), a couple blocks away from the 14th Street depot, and another at a new station on Hull Street, appropriately named Hull Street Station. As a result of this split, the 14th Street Depot was demolished and replaced by a freight depot with combined offices. The new freight depot was 40 feet wide and 480 feet long and had offices on the first floor for the first 40 feet and on the second floor for 150 feet. The remaining 440 feet on the first floor was devoted to freight warehouse space. The reason for the demolishment of the 14th Street Passenger depot was that the Southern Railway needed the additional space for freight.The new 14th Street freight depot continued to serve the Southern until the 1980s when the railroad merged with the Norfolk and Western Railway to create the Norfolk Southern Railway. At this point, most of the freight depot was demolished except for a 166-foot section fronting on what is now Canal Street. This was redeveloped as the Southern Railway Taphouse and is a popular bar and brewery in the present day.

Triple Crossing in Richmond, Virginia is one of two places in North America where three Class I railroads cross at different levels at the same spot, the other being Santa Fe Junction in Kansas City. At the lowest (ground) level, the original Richmond and York River Railroad was extended after the American Civil War to connect with the Richmond and Danville Railroad, later part of the Southern Railway System, currently part of Norfolk Southern. The line runs east to West Point, Virginia. The middle level was the main line of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, now part of CSX Transportation known as the "S" line, just south of Main Street Station. It is planned to become part of the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor. At the top level is the Peninsula Subdivision Trestle, a 3-mile-long (4.8 km) viaduct parallel to the north bank of the James River built by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1901 to link the former Richmond and Allegheny Railroad with C&O's Peninsula Subdivision to Newport News and export coal piers. The viaduct, now owned by CSX Transportation, provided an alternate path to the notoriously unstable Church Hill Tunnel which buried a work train with fatalities on October 2, 1925. A locomotive and ten flat cars remain entombed with at least one rail worker, killing several others whose bodies were eventually recovered. The triple crossing has been a Richmond attraction for railfans for over 100 years, although the number of photographic angles decreased in the 1990s due to a new flood wall.

Virginia Department of Highways Building, also known as the State Highway Commission Building, is a historic government office building located in Richmond, Virginia. The building serves as headquarters for the Virginia Department of Transportation. It was built in 1937, and is a four-story, Stripped Classicism style building. It is of steel and reinforced concrete construction, with a veneer of limestone, Virginia greenstone, and pink granite.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

Richmond Tobacco Exchange was a commodities exchange in Richmond, Virginia, where tobacco was traded. It was established in 1858. Tobacco farmers opposed its creation, because the exchange was controlled by merchants.The Richmond Chamber of Commerce reported sales of leaf tobacco through the exchange for the year ended September 30, 1873 were 45,595 hogsheads, 11,415 tierces and 1,814 boxes. In the year ended September 30, 1872, 2,593,110 pounds (1,176,210 kg) of loose tobacco was weighed at warehouses in Richmond, most at the Shockoe Warehouse.

Virginia State Library-Oliver Hill Building, also known as the State Finance Building, is a historic library and government office building located on Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1892–1894, expanded in 1908–1910, remodeled in 1929, and renovated and expanded in 2004. It is a three-story, Beaux Arts style building with a buff brick veneer and terra cotta detailing. It features an Ionic order portico echoing the Virginia State Capitol’s portico. It originally housed the Virginia State Library collections, the Virginia Supreme Court, and office of the Attorney General. From 1910 to 1964, the State Museum of Natural History was housed in a new wing. In 1939, the functions of the State Library and Supreme Court were moved to the new Virginia State Library building, now the Patrick Henry Building, and the building was rechristened the State Finance Building. On October 28, 2005, the building was officially renamed the Oliver Hill Building, after Oliver Hill.The offices of the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services are located in the Oliver Hill Building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

William Beers House, also known as the Beers House, is a historic home located in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1839, and is a three-story, three bay, Greek Revival style brick dwelling crowned by an Italianate bracketed cornice and shallow hipped roof. It features an entrance with sidelights and pilasters framed by a porch containing coupled Greek Doric order columns. The house was enlarged to a full three stories in 1860. In 1965 the house was acquired by the Medical College of Virginia.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.