Qualla: James River Park System

James River Park System: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eli Christman from Richmond, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0. In 1965, a Richmond scout leader named Joe Schaefer wanted to take his troop camping on an island in the James River. He couldn't get permission. So he and his old roommate from Virginia Military Institute spent the next year identifying a two-mile stretch of riverfront property and arranging its donation to the City of Richmond as a public park. That 380-acre tract, donated in 1966, became the first piece of what is now the James River Park System - over 600 acres of land threaded along both banks of the James from the Huguenot Memorial Bridge in the west to a half mile past the I-95 bridge in the east. JRPS is the rare American urban park where the founding act was not a millionaire's bequest or a planner's grand design but a frustrated scoutmaster's stubbornness.

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Image: Eli Christman from Richmond, VA, USA | CC BY 2.0

James River Park System: From Donation to System

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kg4ygs, CC BY-SA 4.0. Richmond formally created the James River Park System in 1972, stitching Schaefer's gift together with other donated parcels. The river it ran through was not, at the time, in good shape - decades of industrial discharge had left both banks neglected and the water carrying more t...

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Image: Kg4ygs | CC BY-SA 4.0

James River Park System: Whitewater Through Downtown

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Morgan Riley, CC BY 3.0. What makes JRPS genuinely unusual among American urban parks is the river itself. The James drops through downtown Richmond in a series of rapids that range from quiet wave trains to legitimate Class III and Class IV whitewater. Pony Pasture Rapids, near the western end of the pa...

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Image: Morgan Riley | CC BY 3.0

James River Park System: Nineteen Sections

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit tvnewsbadge, CC BY 2.0. Some sources count nineteen distinct sections of the park, stitched along both banks of the river. From west to east: Huguenot Flatwater, the calm stretch between Bosher's Dam and Z Dam that draws kayakers, canoeists, and paddleboarders, with sandy beaches on Nash's Island and Ch...

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Image: tvnewsbadge | CC BY 2.0

James River Park System: Still Growing

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Virginia State Parks staff, CC BY 2.0. The park is not done. New parcels continue to be added; a major expansion effort was underway between 2024 and 2025, including a $4 million land donation along the Richmond Slave Trail - a piece of riverfront where enslaved Africans were marched up from the docks at Manchester to...

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Image: Virginia State Parks staff | CC BY 2.0