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The Center is located at the American Civil War Center on a beautiful eight-acre
National Historic Landmark site
on the James River. Richmond's new Canal Walk fronts the river here, and a
pedestrian bridge gives visitors access to Belle Isle, a park formerly a Civil
War prison camp for captured Union soldiers. Here at Tredegar, five surviving
buildings illustrate the ironworks era and the National Park Service operates
the Richmond Civil War Visitor Center.
Francis B. Deane founded Tredegar in 1836 and named it for a Welsh town and
ironworks. Deane hired 28-year-old Joseph Reid Anderson in 1841 as commercial
sales agent. By 1847, Anderson owned the company, obtaining U.S. government
contracts for cannons. He also manufactured locomotives, train wheels, spikes,
cables, ships? boilers, naval hardware, iron machinery, and brass items.
Anderson employed skilled Northern and foreign workers as well as slaves and some free blacks.
During the Civil War, Tredegar manufactured armor plates for the ironclad CSS Virginia
(formerly USS Merrimack), but specialized in cannons. In 1861, Anderson employed
750 men; by 1863, more than 2,500 worked for him. After the war, he managed the
company until he died in 1892. Tredegar later cast munitions for the U.S. Army
and Navy during the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War.
After a fire in 1955, the company moved across the James River, where it operated on
a smaller scale until the end of the 20th century. Ethyl Corporation bought the ironworks
site in 1957 and restored the surviving buildings in the 1970s. |
