The East End of Richmond, Virginia is the quadrant of the City of Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

, and more loosely the Richmond metropolitan area, east of the downtown.

Geographic boundaries

Within the city, and in Henrico County, it roughly defined as including the area of Richmond north of the James River

James River (Virginia)

The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is long, extending to if one includes the Jackson River, the longer of its two source tributaries. The James River drains a catchment comprising . The watershed includes about 4% open water and an area with a population of 2.5 million...

 and east/northeast of the former Virginia Central Railroad

Virginia Central Railroad

Virginia Central Railroad was chartered as the Louisa Railroad in 1836 by the Virginia Board of Public Works and had its name changed to Virginia Central Railroad in 1850. It connected Richmond with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Gordonsville in 1854, and had expanded westward past the Blue...

 - Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P...

 line (now owned by CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation

CSX Transportation operates a Class I railroad in the United States known as the CSX Railroad. It is the main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns approximately 21,000 route miles...

 and operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad

Buckingham Branch Railroad

Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 200 miles of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia...

) which originated at Main Street Station

Main Street Station (Richmond)

Richmond Main Street Station is a historic railroad station and office building in Richmond, Virginia. Originally built in 1901, it is currently served by Amtrak, and is planned in the future to become the northern terminus of the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor as well as an intermodal station...

, and south and west of I-295

Interstate 295 (Virginia)

Interstate 295 is an eastern and northern bypass of the cities of Richmond and Petersburg in the U.S. state of Virginia. The southern terminus is a junction with Interstate 95 southeast of Petersburg...

.

Within the city, this includes neighborhoods such as Church Hill

Church Hill

Church Hill, also known as the St. John's Church Historic District, is an Old and Historic District in Richmond, Virginia. This district encompasses the original land plat of the city of Richmond. Church Hill is the eastern terminus of Broad Street, a major east-west thoroughfare in the Richmond...

, Fairmount

Fairmount, Richmond

Originally a trolley car suburb in the years just before the dawn of the 20th century, the Fairmount neighborhood in Church Hill, Richmond, Virginia, is located just north of Union Hill. Much of the neighborhood was developed from the 1890s to the 1920s, and its buildings largely reflect Queen...

, Union Hill

Union Hill

Union Hill is the name of several places in the United States:Communities*Union Hill, Alabama*Union Hill, California*Union Hill, Illinois*Union Hill, Kansas City, Missouri - a redeveloping neighborhood*Union Hill, Minnesota...

, Fulton, Powhatan Hill, Fulton Hill

Fulton Hill

Fulton Hill is a neighborhood located in the East End of Richmond, Virginia. The name is used for the area stretching from Gillies Creek to the Richmond city limits, often including Fulton Bottom and Montrose Heights. The zip code is 23231.-History:...

, Montrose Heights, Fairfield Court, Creighton Court, Whitcomb Court, Mosby Court, Eastview, Brauers, Peter Paul, Woodville, North Church Hill, Chimborazo and Oakwood. These neighborhoods are predominantly African-American, although Church Hill and Fulton Hill have gained a considerable number of white residents in recent years due to lower housing prices than in many other parts of the city.

The terminology "East End" also broadly includes much of eastern Henrico County

Henrico County, Virginia

Henrico is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a state of the United States. As of 2010, Henrico was home to 306,935 people. It is located in the Richmond-Petersburg region and is a portion of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area...

 as a portion the Richmond Metropolitan area. Communities outside the city limits in this area include the census designated places of Highland Springs

Highland Springs, Virginia

Highland Springs is a census-designated place in Henrico County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,137 at the 2000 census.- History :...

, Montrose

Montrose, Virginia

Montrose is a census-designated place in Henrico County, Virginia, United States. The population was 7,018 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Montrose is located at ....

, Sandston

Sandston, Virginia

Sandston is a census-designated place in Henrico County, Virginia, United States, near the state capital of Richmond. The population as of the 2010 Census was 7,571. Sandston is adjacent to the Richmond International Airport.-History:...

, and Varina

Varina, Virginia

Varina is a former unincorporated town and current magisterial district in the easternmost portion of Henrico County, Virginia, United States....

.

A portion of Hanover County

Hanover County, Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 86,320 people, 31,121 households, and 24,461 families residing in the county. The population density was 183 people per square mile . There were 32,196 housing units at an average density of 68 per square mile...

, primarily in the Mechanicsville

Mechanicsville, Virginia

Mechanicsville is the name of four places in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States of America:*Mechanicsville, Hanover County, Virginia*Mechanicsville, Loudoun County, Virginia*Mechanicsville, Rockbridge County, Virginia...

 area also meets the above geographic description, and may be considered by some to be part of the East End of Metropolitan Richmond, though is equally considered outside of the quadrant system, due to its separation from the city by the Chickahominy River

Chickahominy River

The Chickahominy is an river in the eastern portion of the U.S. state of Virginia. The river rises about northwest of Richmond and flows southeast and south to the James River...

 and swamp.

History and development

In the era just before and as European settlement began at the turn of the 17th century, near Powhatan Hill, a place known as "Powhatan" which was the village or "town" that Wahunsunacock (who has become better-known as the Chief Powhatan

Chief Powhatan

Chief Powhatan , whose proper name was Wahunsenacawh , was the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607...

) came from was located. An early capital of the Powhatan Confederacy, "Powhatan" was also the name used by the natives to refer to the James River

James River (Virginia)

The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is long, extending to if one includes the Jackson River, the longer of its two source tributaries. The James River drains a catchment comprising . The watershed includes about 4% open water and an area with a population of 2.5 million...

).
The East End contains a number of notable cemeteries, including the Confederate Cemetery of Oakwood

Oakwood Cemetery (Richmond)

Oakwood Cemetery is a large, city-owned burial ground in the East End of Richmond, Virginia.Richmond established its first municipal cemetery at Shockoe Hill in 1820. The ground was very popular, and by the early 1850s, space was scarce for new burials. The city responded by buying two tracts in...

, the historic African-American Evergreen Cemetery

Evergreen Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)

Evergreen Cemetery is a historic African-American cemetery in the East End of Richmond, Virginia, dating from 1891. Notable African-American Richmonders including Maggie L. Walker, John Mitchell, Jr., A.D.Price, and Rev.J.Andrew Bowler are buried there....

, and the Richmond National Cemetery

Richmond National Cemetery

Richmond National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery located three miles east of the city of Richmond in Henrico County, Virginia. It encompasses , and as of the end of 2005, had 9,322 internments. It is currently closed to new interments...

.

While the majority of the East End is now predominantly African American, most of the area was populated as a result of white flight

White flight

White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...

. This changed dramatically in the mid sixties with the urban renewal project of the Fulton area. Fulton was completely African American at that time. The Federal Government then came in and bought the neighborhoods and razed them. Many of the folks that received those funds moved to the areas known as Hechler Village and Montrose Heights.