The Progressive Era’s spirit of reform is tangibly memorialized in the surviving buildings of the Laurel Industrial School in Henrico County, north of Richmond. The Prison Association of Virginia, a group of private citizens seeking to reform the treatment of juvenile offenders, established this institution in 1892 as a model boys’ reformatory. Privately owned and administered, the school received state appropriations until the Commonwealth took control in 1920. The Henrico County complex was sold to private owners when its functions were moved to Goochland County in 1932. In its heyday about 300 boys were housed here, attending classes and working in the shops or on the farm. The principal surviving structure of this high-minded effort is the 1896 Main Building, a Romanesque-style work recently rehabilitated for new use. Also remaining in the Laurel Industrial School Historic District are the infirmary, the administration building, and the superintendent’s house, all relatively modest structures. The farmland has succumbed to modern development.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia