Historic Belle Isle

Belle Isle, a 54-acre island in the James River at Richmond, is the largest island in the river there and one of the city’s most historic places. Virginia’s native tribes, including the Powhatans, fished here for thousands of years before the English arrived. Captain John Smith was among the first Europeans to visit the site in 1607, and William Byrd I acquired the island in 1676. William Byrd II, founder of Richmond, called it “the broad rock island.” After the Byrd family sold it about 1776, Belle Isle soon became one of Richmond’s first industrial centers. A nail factory operated there by 1814, followed later by a full-scale ironworks that remained in production until 1972, and granite was quarried there in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the Civil War, the island held one of the South’s most notorious prisoner-of-war camps, and the remains of a Confederate gun emplacement still stand on its western end atop the hill. From 1904 to 1967, the Virginia Electric Power Company operated a hydroelectric power plant on the island’s south bank. In 1995, Belle Isle was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its national historic significance. It is now one of Richmond’s most popular city parks, with hiking and jogging trails, historic ruins, and broad rocks overlooking the river and the roaring rapids on the northern side, and it is both a natural area and part of the James River Park System.

Richmond, Virginia · United States