Poplar Lawn Historic District

Poplar Lawn Historic District is a neighborhood of about eleven blocks south of downtown Petersburg, Virginia, arranged around a two-block public green. Most of its buildings are two- and two-and-a-half-story houses, mainly white frame with some brick, built in the second half of the 19th century for a middle- to upper-class clientele. Italianate houses dominate, alongside Federal, Georgian, Greek Revival, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival examples, some dating from around 1790. Cast-iron fences and deep setbacks give the streets a consistent character. The park was a muster and drill ground from the War of 1812 through the Civil War, when it also held a temporary hospital. The city bought it in 1846, and in the 1870s it received a goldfish pond, hundreds of trees and curving paths reflecting Olmsted-era landscape ideas. A few modern buildings intrude, but the area has largely escaped high-rise development and urban renewal, keeping its 19th-century appearance.