On Saturday morning, head back downtown and start your day off strong with a coffee and pastry at Petite MarieBette on Water Street. Once you've secured a signature canelé, walk over to the Albemarle County Courthouse for your first of three walking tours with the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society (ACHS).
Founded in 1940, the ACHS has been a repository of local history for 86 years. With a research library full of archival treasures and small lobby exhibits to show off the museum artifacts, ACHS is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing the history of Albemarle County and Charlottesville. Every Saturday from April through November, ACHS hosts public walking tours around the downtown Charlottesville-area. With three different tours available every weekend, there's something for every history lover. Don’t want to choose just one? Take them all (yes, it's doable) and become an expert on the city’s historic heart!
10AM Court Square: Where Charlottesville Began Walking Tour
This tour showcases the origins of Charlottesville and its long history from the Monacan Nation to the modern removal of statues. Starting at the Albemarle County Courthouse on East Jefferson Street, you'll start in the earliest part of the County’s history, even before Charlottesville became the County Seat. You can learn about the fateful ride of Jack Jouett in 1781 to his father’s Swan Tavern, the construction of the Monticello Hotel in 1926, and the development of Court Square and Market Street Parks.
You’ll pass by some of Charlottesville’s houses of worship – including Charlottesville’s only synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel (founded in 1882), and oldest Catholic Church, Holy Comforter (founded in 1880) – to discuss how Jefferson’s support of religious freedom found its home in the city. Finish your tour by learning about the complex history of Paul Goodloe McIntire, a Charlottesville-born stockbroker whose legacy includes municipal parks and libraries as well as Confederate statues that have since made national news.
11:30AM Historic Downtown Mall Walking Tour
Beginning just outside the Ting Pavilion and Charlottesville’s City Hall, this tour features old buildings and business and discusses the development of the city’s bustling Main Street. Explore how transportation changed from rivers to roads to railroads; the stories of immigrants, enslaved and free people of color, and many more who called this bustling downtown area home; and learn how the many storefronts and buildings have changed over time.
As you walk down what’s now a pedestrian mall, you learn how a city’s Main Street has the ability to change its landscape. Ghost signs and original buildings will be pointed out along the way, including the famous Miller’s Downtown, now known more for its connection to Dave Matthews Band, than its history as the drugstore started by Dr. Guy Miller, Sr. and Charles Link in 1916. No tour of the Downtown Mall would be complete without learning our more modern history, including the demolition of the nearby Vinegar Hill neighborhood and the subsequent construction of the pedestrian mall in 1976. Charlottesville’s complex history can be seen throughout its built environment – you just need to know where to look.
1PM Black Barbers of Charlottesville Walking Tour
Starting at the ACHS building and former public library, this tour shows that barbershops are not just a place for a haircut. You'll dive into the rich and meaningful history of Black-owned barbershops in downtown Charlottesville from the post-Civil War Era through Jim Crow and segregation and learn about influential community members like John West, who opened barbershops in the downtown area and spent many years serving a segregated city.
As locations of social activism and community gathering, barbershops were not only places of business for men like James Ferguson and William Cogbill, proprietors of two other downtown shops. Even take a peek at Cavalier Barbers, a Black-owned barbershop that’s been downtown since the early 2000s. Tours will include a walk off Main Street to visit the former site of Joker’s, located in Vinegar Hill, passing Tavern & Grocery along the way, a historic building formerly the site of George Inge’s grocery store. After the tour, walk with your guide back to the Downtown Mall for endless lunch options.