Inge's Grocery Store (former)

The building at 333 West Main Street went up in 1820 — a Federal-style brick structure, originally a residence, that changed hands repeatedly over the following decades, serving at various points as a parsonage, an iron foundry, and a merchant's shop. In 1890, George P. Inge bought it for $3,000.

Inge had graduated from Hampton Institute, taught in Charlottesville's public schools, and opened the grocery in July 1891. The store became the center of commercial and social life in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood — the city's African American business district — supplying fresh fish, hotels, boarding houses, and the University Hospital. Public accommodations refused Black visitors, so the Inge family housed them upstairs. Booker T. Washington, a classmate of George Inge's at Hampton, stayed there when he visited Charlottesville.

Thomas Inge, Sr., born in the store, ran it from 1946 until 1979. By then, Vinegar Hill had been largely razed through urban renewal. The grocery was among the few buildings that survived. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. A city historical marker went up in 2004. The building still stands on West Main — one of the oldest structures on the road between downtown and the University, and one of the last things left from the neighborhood it anchored.