Books:

Woodland Heights, Virginia
Forest Hill Park Commemorative Edition
Softbound, 4-color cover, 32 pages, 21 duotone illustrations.

6 by 9-1/2 inches.
 

Price: $5.00
Pay now & Lee Shewmake will contact you about pick up or delivery.

Read your way back to 1891…and catch a glimpse of life in the Gilded Age. In publishing, “Woodland Heights, Virginia,” Friends of Forest Hill Park collaborated with the Library of Virginia to publish an updated edition of a rare, out-of-print developer’s booklet in the LVA collection. This edition’s subtitle is the “Forest Hill Park Commemorative Edition,” because it was published to mark the park’s recent official listing on the Virginia and National Registers of Historic Landmarks.
Several years ago, volunteer historians for the park group discovered a rare copy of a richly illustrated pamphlet, published circa 1891 by a Manchester-area real estate developer, in the Library of Virginia’s collections. The booklet describes the park’s unspoiled green space in great detail, luring homeowners to a healthier, more comfortable life in Woodland Heights, Richmond’s newest “trolley-car suburb.” A few excerpts from the booklet were featured in the Friends’ “Illustrated History of Forest Hill Park.” This time, the rare original has been be reprinted in its entirety, and updated with a new essay that traces the growth of the park and surrounding neighborhoods of Westover Hills, Forest Hill, and Woodland Heights during the past century. This edition celebrates the park’s historic designation as it revives the elegance of Old Richmond at its finest.

An Illustrated History of Forest Hill Park
Softbound, 4-color cover, 40 pages, 40 illustrations, 10-1/2 by 8 inches
 

Price $5.00
Pay now & Lee Shewmake will contact you about pick up or delivery.

This is the first book ever to offer a comprehensive history of Forest Hill Park, one of Richmond’s oldest and most beautiful public parks. The engaging text by historian Lynne A. George, illustrated with historic photographs and antique engravings, traces the history of this exceptional property to 1768, as part of the estate of William Byrd III of Westover and Falls Plantation.
The story continues through its life as “Boscobel,” a working farm and country estate under the ownership of Holden Rhodes (1799-1857), prominent Richmond and Chesterfield attorney and jurist, to its colorful past as a turn-of-the-century trolley terminal and amusement park, complete with roller coaster, carousel, dance hall, penny arcade and bowling alley.
Today, Forest Hill Park lives on as one of the city’s most popular and beloved green-spaces South of the James.