Gospel Hill

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View of the Gospel Hill neighborhood as well as the University of Virginia Medical Center and Hospital from around 1940. Reproduced from UVA Visual History Collection.

Gospel Hill was a historic Black neighborhood in Charlottesville throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was systematically demolished by the University of Virginia throughout the 1970's and 1980's as the institution gradually bought and cleared homes and businesses in the area in order to expand its medical center onto the site.

History

Gospel Hill was originally settled by a number of free Black families during the antebellum period. Alice Carter and Golden Coles both moved to the community in the early twentieth century.

Commencing in the 1970's, the University of Virginia began acquiring homes and businesses in the area in order to construct Jordan Hall (now known as Pinn Hall), McLeod Hall (site of the School of Nursing), the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, and parking garages as part of its expanded medical center. The last remnants of the neighborhood were developed in 1984, when the university constructed the new University Hospital building on the site. Today, no physical trace of Gospel Hill remains in the area.[1]

References