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Highland Park (Southern Tip)
A large neighborhood located in the northeast of the City of Richmond, Highland Park is ideally situated on the highlands that slope to Bacon’s Quarters Branch on the south and Shockoe Creek on the east. The early history of Highland Park proper, can be traced back to 1821 when a surveyor for the County of Henrico laid out the area called Mount Comfort. The district was largely undeveloped until the late 1890’s, when Mount Comfort became known as Chestnut Hill. In 1908 an official survey changed the name again to Highland Park.
When the Northside Viaduct was constructed in the 1890s, Highland Park became one of Richmond’s original streetcar suburbs. Later, in 1914, the city annexed this area from Henrico County. The Virginia Central and the Chesapeake and Ohio railroads, which consolidated in 1868, were both early catalysts for the rapid expansion of the economy and the growth of the Highland Park community. The community’s power plants, lumberyards, and a locomotive company created employment for a work force that required homes close by.
Early in the twentieth century the East Highland Park Corporation encouraged home owners by offering: suspension of payments in case of sickness or unemployment, a deed to the family free of further payments in case of the owner’s death after one year, and terms of two dollars cash and one-to-two dollars per week. They built a solid old neighborhood of large, sturdy individual houses. Many of which were constructed using Sears and Roebuck house plans.
Now in a revitalization phase to restore community pride to a neighborhood that once flourished, Highland Park is situated ideally for urban regrowth. Like many other older areas of the city of Richmond, Highland Park’s beautiful, older homes and architecture are waiting for the pioneers of today.