VIRGINIA HALL, VIRGINIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Ettrick, Chesterfield
Built 1883-88; demolished 1937
Photograph: Virginia Historical Society
Virginia State University is the nation's oldest state-supported land grant college for African Americans. Designed by Harrison
Waite of western Virginia, this multi-story, multi-sectional behemoth was Virginia's largest collegiate building and housed the entire
school -- dormitories, classrooms, offices, and laboratories. It was decked out in the currently fashionable French Second Empire
style with mansard roofs and a central towering pyramidal cupola. It was fitted in the most modern manner, with fireproof stairways,
elevators, lavatories, baths, water-closets, steam radiation heat, and an electric light system. Crowning a bluff above the
Appomattox River, Virginia Hall was a conspicuous landmark from downtown Petersburg. Its general form and character
were consistent with the structures being built for the many newly established land grant colleges across the country. One
can scarcely believe that such an enormous and solid facility could be vulnerable to replacement, but in 1937 an engineering
report found that it had been constructed on inadequate footings.
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