New signage around Hampton’s Phoebus community aims to link residents and visitors to the district’s history.
The brown signs are fastened to light poles throughout the streetscape bearing QR codes linking to an interactive map. Using location data, the no-download app leads users on a self-guided tour dotted with 89 historic Phoebus buildings and businesses.
The tour is a collaborative project by the Phoebus Partnership, a civic group with a mission of economic revitalization and historic preservation in the southeastern Hampton neighborhood.
“We don’t toot our horn enough as a community about all the great history we have here,” Neighborhood Commissioner Joe Griffith said.
“I feel like people can be inspired by understanding the history of their house, for example; maybe they don’t even know it’s on the national register.”
While the signs are new, the project itself rolled out in 2023. Griffith did the lion’s share of work developing the free StoryMaps app, while resident Tim Receveur helped collect historic pictures of Phoebus.
Griffith, though, said many other Phoebus residents played a part in the final product.
“It happened over several years,” Griffith said. “Sometimes it’s as simple as someone down the street saying ‘Hey, I found these photographs in my aunt’s closet and we don’t know what they are, but they seem to be Phoebus.’”
Some of the photos were found by happenstance at yard sales as people moved or decluttered their houses.
“We got a whole bunch of architectural photos from that,” Griffith said.
When their local sourcing came up short, a combination of help from Google Street View and the Hampton History Museum helped fill in the gaps.
Griffith said it was important for him and Receveur that the project was locally produced.
“This all aligns with our mantra of doing things for ourselves without outside help,” Griffith said. “We have the skills and the passion to put towards a project like this, we can take care of it.”
Once the design was done, they had to make sure the signs were up to Virginia Department of Transportation standards. With that achieved, the signs went up this May.
Griffith hopes the tour can contribute to the Phoebus Partnership’s place-making efforts and serve as an educational tool.
“This level of granularity and history and architecture isn’t taught in schools,” he said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for kids to just take an exploration into what was the town before it was built up.”
