#twentyfifthstreet

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Deliverance

The entrance of this former bank building bears a remarkable resemblance to the American Trust building at 1005 East Main Street. There are differences, but it has the same ornate columns, arch, shield, and eagle. The similarities are so great, it makes you think it was designed by the same architects, Mowbray & Uffinger of New York.

400 North Twenty-Fifth Street

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Looking south and west from Long Branch #toronto #etobicoke #longbranch #twentyfifthstreet #lakepromenade #lakeontario #horizon (at Twenty fifth st in Etobicoke) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br1GaSJnS40/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1x0a6h3g8ha4f

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Yarbrough-Pohlig Factory

AKA Pohlig Box Company, A. Pohlig Paper Box Factory, Pohlig Bros. Inc, Turpin & Yarborough Tobacco Company, Turpin Factory Hospital, Yarborough Factory Hospital, & Second Alabama Hospital

2411 East Franklin Street

Built, 1853

Architect, John Freeman

April 2019 — looking toward 2411 East Franklin Street

What’s in a name, right?

On this site in 1853 Turpin & Yarborough Tobacco Company constructed parts of this building as a tobacco factory, one of five tobacco factories in Richmond at the time. (Pohlig Box Factory)

(Library of Congress) — undated photo from the Historic American Buildings Survey

When the Civil War began in 1861, it was rented by at a rate of $250 a month for use as an Alabama hospital.

The building was well ventilated, fitted with gas and water, and had a small yard that was opposite the cemetery of St. John's Church. A two-story wing was attached to the main building and a storage room, laundry-facilities, deadhouse, and privies were located in the yard.

(Alabama Department of Archives & History) — Juliet Opie Hopkins

Mrs. Juliet O. Hopkins, wife of Judge Arthur F. Hopkins was the guiding force behind finding accommodations for sick and wounded Alabamians in Richmond, Initially many were sent to a division of Chimborazo, but by the end of 1861, Mrs. Hopkins had established two Alabama hospitals in the city.

[ORN]

Even before the hospitals were in operation, she oversaw both the recruitment and training of nurses and the operation of a warehouse that served as a receiving and distribution center for the donations she solicited from the people of Alabama. This tireless woman rented the buildings, hired and sometimes paid the attendants, and purchase the supplies and provisions necessary for operating the hospitals. Before the opening campaign of 1862, she established yet another hospital to care for the ever-increasing numbers of sick and wounded. [RWH]

April 2019

In 1865 the Turpin & Yarborough Tobacco Company resumed operations until the sale of the property in 1909. Pohlig Bros. Inc. converted the site to a paper box factory that remained in continuous operation until relocating in 1992. (Pohlig Box Factory)

(Find A Grave) — August Pohlig

A knife-grinder and polisher in his native Germany, Pohlig came to America in 1859. In 1866, he and a partner, Otto Meister, formed the Pohlig Box Company. The partners used cardboard, cloth, and glue to make their boxes and help meet the growing need for lightweight, low-cost packaging. The business, still in operation today, remained in the Pohlig family's hands until 1987. (Find A Grave)

April 2019

Until recent years there has been no business on Church Hill other than neighborhood shops such as the very early one we have noticed at Twenty-seventh and Marshall. A small business neighborhood has now grown up on Broad between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-sixth, expanding north for two blocks on Twenty-fifth. 

April 2019

Nor did factories attempt to push from the crowded Valley up the steep slopes. The single exception is the tobacco factory built in 1853 at the southwest corner of Franklin and Twenty-fifth by Turpin and Yarbrough, the architect being John Freeman. Since the burning of the Dunlop Mills, this is the handsomest and least altered of the old factories or warehouses left in Richmond.

April 2019

Its almost eighteenth-century simplicity of line contrasts curiously with the florid mansions which the tobacco and flour magnates were building for themselves during the 1850’s. Since 1909 the Yarbrough factory has been owned and operated by the Pohlig Brothers’ paper box factory. [ORN]

April 2019

The Pohlig family owned the company until 1987, and it was moved to Chesterfield in 1992. It has since gone through several ownership changes and is now part of a holding company called Oliver Packaging LLC. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Oddly enough, the old factory building is not part of the Virginia Historic Registry, possibly due to its conversion into  residential and retail space by Stanley Shield LLC in 2004. It has gone by many names over the years but seems that only one architectural historian, Mary Wingfield Scott, has written about it, so we’ll go with the one she gave it.

(Yarbrough-Pohlig Factory is part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[ORN] Old Richmond Neighborhoods. Mary Wingfield Scott. 1950.

[RWH] Richmond's Wartime Hospitals. Rebecca Barbour Calcutt. 2005.

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Wayback RVA (119)

Morton G. Billups Stuart L. Billups

Chas. J. Billups & Sons Funeral Directors and Embalmers Established 1870

Office and Parlors 2500 East Marshall Street

Private Parlors Private Ambulance

Day Phone: Mad. 448 Sunday and Night: Mad. 975

At some point after 1928, the Billups building experienced mitosis and doubled in size. Lost was the cornice, but gained was the copper awning and shields.

The Richmond Guidebook. Louise Nurney Kernodle. 1928.

2500 East Marshall Street

September 2018

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Looking west from Long Branch #toronto #etobicoke #longbranch #twentyfifthstreet #lakeontario #horizon (at Long Branch, Toronto) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br1EguenqX8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1d1td9e4gtchb

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Strip mall and apartments opposite Twenty-Fifth Street #toronto #longbranch #queensway #twentyfifthstreet #stripmall #apartment (at Long Branch, Toronto)

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Looking east from Long Branch #toronto #etobicoke #longbranch #twentyfifthstreet #lakepromenade #lakeontario #latergram (at Long Branch, Toronto) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br2ckb2HDGq/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=gysz3i469k3a

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Shore #toronto #etobicoke #longbranch #twentyfifthstreet #lakepromenade #lakeontario #rocks #concrete #beaches #horizon (at Twenty fifth st in Etobicoke) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br1GUIEne_B/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15jqbdscwg24

[abitmoredetail]

Looking east from Long Branch #toronto #etobicoke #longbranch #twentyfifthstreet #lakepromenade #lakeontario #horizon (at Twenty fifth st in Etobicoke) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br1GPZVHb3I/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1hxjd0gqzg9dj

[abitmoredetail]

Looking south from Long Branch #toronto #etobicoke #longbranch #twentyfifthstreet #lakepromenade #lakeontario #horizon (at Twenty fifth st in Etobicoke) https://www.instagram.com/p/Br1EriTnAri/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=7f6mkrgzvkmw

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Ancient Advertising (90)

Volunteers of America Thrift Store Coca Cola

Shades of Jefferson Airplane...

500 North Twenty-Fifth Street Atlas RVA Project

May 2018

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John Morris Cottages

2500 East Grace Street, built, 1830 207 North 25th Street, built, 1835

December 2013 — looking toward 2500 East Grace Street

This pair is among RVA's oldest residential buildings, but the corner house on Grace is likely not the first house to stand there.

The date of the corner cottage, now numbered 2500 East Grace is extremely hard to determine. In 1827 Will Montague bequeathed to his son William D. Montague “the lot I last purchased of George Winston . . . a frame house with chimney in the middle lying opposite the old Episcopal Church wall.”

[HOR] — looking towards both cottages

The location fits, but the chimney is not in the middle of either of these cottages. We must conclude that Montague’s cottage had disappeared and that the present two buildings were erected by John Morris, the corner one about 1830, and the one on Twenty-fifth Street in 1835. As Morris only paid $220 for a lot 138 ft. on Twenty-fifth and 129 ft. on Grace, it is hardly reasonable to suppose this low price included even a small wooden house. The Twenty-fifth Street house is easier to date, as the list of buildings erected between March 1835 and March 1836 includes a one-story dwelling on the east side of Twenty-fifth between “H” and “G,” as Broad and Grace Streets were called at that time. 

(Library of Congress) — Beers Illustrated Atlas of the Cities of Richmond & Manchester, 1877 — Section H

In 1859 the heirs of John Morris sold the property, including a house now gone, further east on Grace, to Eli G. Bickford. Other owners were William Craig and Thomas W. Pemberton. Except from 1882 to 1904, they have always belonged to a single individual. No account of the successive owners of these little houses can give an inkling of their charm. Both are tiny.

December 2013 — looking towards 207 North 25th Street

The corner house is the simpler of the two, the frieze of dentals, heavier dormers, and more elaborate porch giving the Twenty-fifth Street house a much more sophisticated air than the older cottage. Unfortunately the porch on the later cottage has recently been somewhat spoiled by an extension to the north. The corner house is untouched and, with its big tree and box bush right against the porch, is a most alluring little dwelling. [HOR]

(John Morris Cottages are part of the Atlas RVA! Project)

Print Sources

[HOR] Houses of Old Richmond. Mary Wingfield Scott. 1942.