The future marker of Powerhouse Piraeus will read:

Ahead of you is the historical realm within which Charlottesville was born. Beneath your feet is the oldest road in western Virginia- far older than Charlottesville- a road built to serve British colonial entrepreneur / slaver John Carter. A road later serving as Thomas Jefferson’s driveway, a muddy route of low-water crossings, and for the unlucky slaves of young America, toil and frigid hell as they carried chunks of Rivanna ice up the steep road to Jefferson’s pride: an ingenious icehouse for visiting summertime dignitaries to enjoy the refreshments their quiet agonies allowed. After Jefferson’s time, his other brainchild took hold: a port on the Rivanna named in honor of the “port from which western civilization sailed”: PIRÆUS, or in Virginia vernacular: Pireus. This port marked the furthest inland a watercraft could reach, and transformed Charlottesville into the commercial seat of the western front, allowing Woolen Mills to materialize and Jefferson’s college to make the map at last.

With the advent of railroad the port faded, but in the civil war, the tracks above you, as well as the confederate-uniform-producing Woolen Mills, were razed by then Captain Custer, strong-arming the city fathers to present him a key to Charlottesville in a charming little narcissistic ceremony… and spare the town’s remainder.

In 1912 a powerhouse was erected here by the C&A Ry - who ran the electric streetcars of the city. At that time, only 30% of city residents consumed electricity, so this construction was touted as a lifestyle change opportunity and sold as the modern paradigm through billboards and electric-truck-based promotionals. Shortly after it was built, electrical demand outstripped the plant’s 400 coal tons/month capacity to deliver, and by 1926 it shut down. In WWII it is rumored to have fired back up, but I believe it was then that the roof was peeled away and the inner machinery extracted, and scrapped.