Built 1860 (1860)-1861, 1908 Opened 1941 Architectural style Italianate architecture | VLR # 127-0353 Area 3 ha | |
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Location 210 Hospital St., Richmond, Virginia NRHP Reference # 81000647, 89001913 (Boundary Increase) Added to NRHP October 29, 1981, June 13, 1990 (Boundary Increase) Designated VLR July 21, 1981, August 15, 1989 Similar Agecroft Hall, Branch House, Virginia Holocaust Museum, Monroe Park, Maggie L Walker National | ||
The Almshouse, also known as the Richmond Nursing Home, is a historic almshouse and hospital complex located in Richmond, Virginia. The complex includes the Main Building, a ca. 1950 one-story Administration Building, the West Building and the Garage. The Main Building was built in 1860–61, and is an Italianate style brick building consisting of three symmetrically spaced pavilions linked by hyphens. Each pavilion is three stories tall, three bays wide, and rises above a raised full-story basement. The main portion of the West Building was built in 1908. It consists of three symmetrically spaced pavilions linked by hyphens. Each pavilion is two stories tall, three bays wide, and rises above a raised full-story basement. The West Building housed a charity hospital for African-American residents of Richmond. The garage is a two story masonry and wood frame two bay building. The Almshouse, later called the Richmond Nursing Home, continued to serve the less-fortunate members of the Richmond community until the late 1970s. It is now in use again as a privately managed home for low-income residents.
From 1861 to 1864, it served as a Confederate States hospital, officially designated "General Hospital No. 1" but also widely known as the "Alms House Hospital". It operated under the direction of Dr. Charles Bell Gibson, the head of surgical department at the Medical College of Virginia. Many casualties from the battles of First and Second Manassas, Ball's Bluff, the Seven Days, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville were treated here. For much of that time, Union sick and wounded were treated in the building as well. In 1864, the building transitioned briefly to use as an officers-only facility until closing as a hospital in mid-1864. In December 1864, it became the barracks of the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets after that campus had been burned by Union troops under the command of Gen. David Hunter. The cadets occupied the building until the fall of Richmond to Union forces in April 1865.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, with a boundary increase in 1990.