Timeline

The Rice Center over time

6000 B.C. to early 1600s

Native Americans inhabited area.

1620

Property was part of a private land grant from King James I to Nathaniel Causey.

1791

Property purchased by William Irby.

1862

Land was used as a staging area by McClellan’s Union troops during the Civil War.

1928

Property purchased from the Irby family by Richmond entrepreneur, King Fulton, who established a hunt club.

1929

Start of Great Depression. Property purchased from hunt club by the family of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell.

1935

Property sold to the Richmond YMCA to be developed as a youth camp.

1960

Archaeological study revealed evidence of Native Americans on site.

1977

Ambassador Walter Rice purchased the property from YMCA.

1979

Additional 100 acres purchased from Berkeley Plantation.

2000

Mrs. Inger Rice donates property to VCU for the creation of the Inger and Walter Rice Center for Environmental Life Sciences.