McKee Row

McKee Row was a majority Black section of businesses and residences directly west of the Albemarle County Circuit Courthouse in downtown Charlottesville. In 1914, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors confiscated the land from its residents and granted it to the city, citing “rowdiness” that they believed could potentially impact white businesses. This was part of Charlottesville’s first gentrification project. A school for white children was planned for the space, and the buildings were torn down in 1918. Instead, Paul Goodloe McIntire bought the land. He gave it back to the city in 1919, on the sole condition that it would be used as a park (Court Square Park)to house and center a south-facing statue of Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

This site had historically been a mixed-use space. In 1828, there was a printing shop, a dry goods and grocery store, a hatter’s shop, and a merchant’s shop, each with private residences above.

References

National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service Form 10-900-a, 1996, Section 8 page 3, on deposit Albemarle County Historical Society “Monuments“ file.