Monument Avenue, perhaps Richmond’s best known residential street, got its first monument – a statue of Robert E. Lee – in 1890, but an economic depression kept the houses away until the early 1900s. Even its earliest plans, though, called for a grand avenue lined with trees and striking mansions. Among the prominent architects who designed houses in Monument Avenue’s historic district are John Russell Pope, William Lawrence Bottomley and Duncan Lee. Today, Monument Avenue has six monuments, and it runs for five miles, to Horsepen Road in western Henrico County.
