Fulton Items

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People of Fulton

Fulton Park is Now Powhatan Hill - May 24, 1930

With several thousand of the citizens of Richmond both old and young in attendance, Fulton Park was yesterday afternoon rededicated and renamed, "Powhatan Hill," in recognition of the famous Indian ruler, who on a similar May day three hundred and twenty-three years before welcomed to the site of Richmond Captain John Smith, Captain Christopher Newport and others of the First English settlers at Jamestown, who had come to the falls of the river on a visit of exploration.

Fulton - Margaret Cavedo Reminisces about Fulton - March 27, 1936

Memories of an older day in Richmond and of one of the city's historic sections are recalled in an interview given the News Leader by Mrs. Margaret D. Cavedo, widow of Raphael A. Cavedo, who for seventy-eight years has resided on the same block in "Fulton." Her home is now designated 4529 Lester Street and from its windows Mrs. Cavedo has had opportunity to see much of the city's life both on its historic nearby hills and its equally historic water front.

Birthplace of Richmond Now Appears Sick, Shaggy - January 7, 1967

For a visitor who strolls the streets and observes such scenes as these, it's difficult to believe that this sick and shaggy community is, in a way, the birthplace of Richmond.

BUT IT IS. Now known as Fulton Bottom, this dreary neighborhood stands at the base of Powhatan Hill, home of the Indian chief who welcomed the first white visitors to what is now Richmond on May 23, 1607.

Fulton - Work is Started at Gillies Creek - August 9, 1972

Contractors have begun an $885,000 rechanneling and realignment of Gillies Creek in the Fulton area, a project designed to alleviate much of severe flooding the area has experienced twice in the past three years.

W. C. English Construction Co., Inc., began work earlier this summer which will move the creek north of its present location and north of a new four-lane divided parkway approved this week by the Richmond Planning Commission.

Approved Monday was the general character and location of an improved Williamsburg Avenue and a new Stoney Run Parkway. The parkway has been designed to connect Williamsburg Avenue with Government Road and is to carry heavy truck traffic "out of rather than through the Fulton area," according to Kenneth V. Magdziuk of the engineering consulting firm of Harland Bartholomew & Associates.

Fulton - Who is John Prosser? - February 1975

John Prosser, who were you?

That question hangs like a mysterious fog over a small knoll in Richmond's Fulton area.

Sitting on top of the knoll about 15 feet above the 4400 block of E. Main St. is Prosser's grave, which overlooks the James River from what once apparently was a cemetery of several grave sites.

Fulton Plan Sparks 'Roots' Fight - After 1975

A warm fall wind blew across the predominantly vacant acres of the Fulton community. The wind blew against a row of early 20th century town houses, causing a whistling in the living room of the only occupied house.

Spencer Armstead sat in the room and began telling his story, which began with his birth in an upstairs room of the house, a story that included graduating from a predominantly white New England preparatory school, spending four months in a Virginia prison camp and fighting desperately to save the row of houses.

Fulton Roots - Spencer Armstead - November 19, 1977

Spencer Armstead says he won't mind if people think he's crazy...

Armstead says he and eight boyhood friends will stop urban renewal's bulldozers before they raze what little is left of Fulton Bottom, where Armstead was born 27 years ago.

Fulton - Destruction of Row Houses on Denny Street - March 2, 1978

A huge yellow front-end loader today began taking bites out of Spencer Armstead's dream.

"I guess the score is Housing Authority 6, Together 0," Armstead said as the machine chewed away at one of the nine row houses he and a group of young Fulton Bottom men wanted to save.

Fulton: Populated More by a Spirit Than People - September 21, 1980

Almost 20 years ago, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority designated Fulton Richmond's most blighted area; 70 percent of the housing was called "deteriorated enough to require clearance;" another 22 percent was seriously "dilapidated." The Authority started buying up Fulton.

As it did, the people living and working there -- about 3,000 of them -- took the money they got for their homes and businesses, if they owned them, and the relocation benefits the Authority paid, which ranged up to $15,000 and moved away.

Bulldozers knocked down the buildings and trucks hauled off the rubble. This was called urban renewal. It seemed like a good idea at the time.