Brown's Island

The island's first settler was Elijah Brown, for whom it was named. He acquired the land in 1826. A later owner named Neilson tried to rename the island as Neilson's Island, but it did not last.

During the American Civil War, the island was the home of the Confederate States Laboratory. The C.S. Laboratory produced ammunition, friction primers, percussion caps, and other ordnance for the Confederate war effort. On Friday, March 13, 1863, an explosion occurred in a section of the laboratory that killed forty-five individuals and left twenty-three others injured. Most of the killed and injured were young girls who were the labor force used on the island.[1][2]

In 1894, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway opened a coal power plant on the island. In 1899, a hydroelectric power plant on the island's east side, running off the Haxall Canal.[3] Virginia Power also opened a coal power plant nearby in 1936.

The trolley company's plant did not last long but reopened in 1916 as the Dixie Paper Mill

In the 1950s and 60s, electricity production at the hydroelectric plant decreased, and ended altogether in 1968. In 1969, the coal plant was damaged and shut down by flooding from Hurricane Camille. In 1970, the spillway between Johnson's and Brown's Islands was closed and the islands merged. Hurricane Agnes also flooded and closed the coal power plant in 1972, and the plant was closed altogether in 1975.

In 1987, the island became part of the city's James River Parks System. In 1993, Paul Di Pasquale's sculpture Headman was erected on the island's Eastside, depicting a man steering a James Rier Batteaux boat. In 1999, the Army Corps of Engineers refurbished the Haxall canal into a canal walk. The Dominion Virginia Power coal plant was renovated in 2005 by Cordish Company. In 2014, the City released plans for Brown's Island Dam Walk and secured funding from the state of Virginia.[4]