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historic marker Oak Ridge Estate Virginia VA attraction display education historical marker Historical Site information landmark marker Place of Interest sign Tourist Destination Travel Destination attractive destination educating historic markers historic site info signage tourist attraction appealing history no people text tourism travel South attract historic nobody word daytime displays historical markers landmarks markers signs appeal color image educate historical outdoor vertical day destinations historic sites tourist attractions US colour image outside day time USA day-time U.S. words color images daylight outdoors U.S.A. verticals colour images Jason O. Watson / historical-markers.org natural light outsides United States United States of America Nelson County sign with text |
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OAK RIDGE ESTATE
About two miles east is Oak Ridge, a 4,800-acre estate first patented in the 1730s. Robert Rives (1764-1845), a tobacco planter and international trader, built his house there in 1802. In 1867, William Porcher Miles (1822-1899), a former Confederate congressman, acquired the plantation. Nelson County native and Wall Street financier Thomas Fortune Ryan (1851-1928) purchased Oak Ridge in 1901 and transformed it into a country estate. He remodeled Rives's Federal farmhouse into a Colonial Revival mansion and built some 80 structures, including schools, a telephone company building, a movie theater, and stables for Ryan's 200 Thoroughbreds. A Crystal Palace-style greenhouse, a racetrack, and a private railroad station are among 50 surviving structures.
Department of Historic Resources, 1996 |