Carver Industrial Historic District

Six and a half blocks northwest of downtown Richmond make up an industrial district that grew between 1890 and 1930 beside the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad tracks. Thirteen contributing buildings remain, all brick, with intricate patterned brickwork. Styles include Second Empire, Romanesque, Colonial Revival, Italian Renaissance and Art Deco. The earliest large non-railroad complex was the Home Brewery, built around 1891 and later run by the Peter Stumpf Brewing Company. Other buildings housed an ice company, a tobacco warehouse and factory, paper and printing firms, and an electric railway substation. Industry moved here after the 1882 riverfront fire led to ordinances limiting riverfront industries, and after steam locomotives were banned from part of Broad Street. The district sits within the larger Carver neighborhood, which shifted from a middle-class community to a largely African-American working-class one around 1900. As rail transport declined, many buildings were left vacant and several were demolished, including the railroad freight depots.