Episode #64
Richmond's Decoy City, Dead Airfields & Data Centers (Lost city of Elko, Sharp Top Mountain, Shyndigz, etc) — Unscripted #064
Vera Creative Club Merchandise: https://verahouse.co Subscribe to the audio podcast: https://verahouse.buzzsprout.com/follow Follow us: https://instagram.com/verahouse.co Hosted by Myke Metzger & Perri Young: https://instagram.com/mykemetzger https://instagram.com/planetperri In this episode of Vera House Unscripted, we discuss a range of Richmond topics including the lost city of Elko in eastern Henrico and the decoy airfield the Army built there during World War II, the three dummy runways and plywood aircraft that were built to be bombed, the data center campus that sits on that same ground today, the hospital Virginia started there and then abandoned, the family graves now under the campus, Sharp Top Mountain and the stone from its summit set into the Washington Monument, a bakery on Cary Street that will sell you a whole cake at three in the morning, the asteroid crater 35 million years under the Chesapeake Bay, and what Halloween actually looks like in Richmond. We start with the season turning: thermostat negotiations, snowpocalypse preparation, a generator pulled out of an alleyway and rebuilt by hand, and the case that Dr. Martens is not the boot it used to be. Myke spent a couple of nights in Bedford and hiked Sharp Top, about three miles of stairs, and reached the summit for the sunset with a jacket, a headlamp, and a plan. The history is better than the hike. Sharp Top was once believed to be Virginia's highest peak, a stone was taken from its summit and inscribed "From Otter's Summit, Virginia's loftiest peak, to crown a monument to Virginia's noblest son," and it sits in the Washington Monument today. Myke shared the summit with fifteen teenagers in t-shirts and GoPros and spent the walk down deciding whether he is officially old. Later in the episode we get into the ground itself. There is an asteroid crater under the Chesapeake Bay, about two miles of rock that hit 35 million years ago, and the water trapped beneath it is older than the impact: remnants of an ancient Atlantic Ocean, 100 to 145 million years old and twice as salty. Then the lost city of Elko. The legend says the Army built a fake Richmond as a bomber decoy. The record says the 936th Camouflage Battalion laid out three dummy runways to protect Byrd Field, and took more than 40 farms to do it. The streets and fire hydrants that made the place famous were not props at all. They were the beginning of a mental hospital for Black patients that Virginia built for a decade and then moved to Petersburg in 1957, leaving everything already in the ground. Today the tract is White Oak Technology Park, where data centers sit above family cemeteries and a VDOT lab's solvents are still in the soil. The second half is about what we are told to believe. Shyndigz installed a locker you can collect a whole cake from at any hour, which is either genius or the end of civilization, and it opens onto the American diet: white bread, sugar syrup, and the argument that a locally made cake may be better for you than a chain restaurant's chicken. Myke makes the case that Olive Garden is not an Italian restaurant. Perri argues that if you do the opposite of what everyone tells you, you end up right side up. Both of them land on the same rule, which is to keep it simple and eat the thing that somebody actually made. The episode closes on Halloween, three weeks out, with two hosts who have no costumes and a standing request for yours: send costume ideas and spooky story recommendations in the comments. Topics include the Elko Tract, the lost city of Elko, Henrico County, White Oak Technology Park, the 936th Camouflage Battalion, Byrd Field, World War II decoy airfields, Elko Tract Road, the VDOT Elko Materials Lab, TCE, 1,4-dioxane, the Fisher and Garthright families, Sharp Top Mountain, the Peaks of Otter, Bedford, Otter's Summit, the Washington Monument, Thomas Jefferson, the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, Cape Charles, the Eastern Shore, Shyndigz, Cary Street, Sugar & Twine, Olive Garden, WALL-E, Gen Z, the snowpocalypse, Halloween in Richmond, Doctor Doom, and the Vera House Halloween special. Quick interjection to invite you to Vera House Studios. If you are a local Richmond business, entrepreneur, brand owner, or service provider—and you know you need to create better content to get your products and services in front of the right people—we can help. Support the show Get more info about our studio here. This podcast is produced by Vera House — a creative club and premium media studio based in Richmond, Virginia. Our studio exists to champion local brands, creative expression, rva culture, and produce high-impact content for founders, makers, and modern businesses. Follow the movement: instagram.com/verahouse.co youtube.com/@verahousepod verahouse.co Hosted by Myke Metzger & Perri Young: instagram.com/mykemetzger instagram.com/planetperri
