Holsinger Studio portrait on Rotunda steps

On October 27, 1895, a fire destroyed much of the Rotunda and completely leveled the building's sizable annex that housed classroom space, lecture halls, laboratories, and faculty offices. The University commissioned Cabell, Cocke, and Rouss Hall after the fire, all designed by McKim, Mead, and White. These buildings were completed in 1898 and housed facilities once within the destroyed Rotunda annex. The Rotunda was restored to its original form as a library without an elongated annex, an effort completed shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.

Sources “Rotunda - Cvillepedia.” Accessed May 28, 2025. https://www.cvillepedia.org/Rotunda. "Rotunda: History.” University of Virginia, n.d. https://rotunda.virginia.edu/history.

Rufus W. Holsinger (1866-1930), a photographer, relocated to Charlottesville from Bedford, Pennsylvania in the late 1880s. He opened the Holsinger University Studio on West Main Street for over four decades. Holsinger worked in the city as a studio and field photographer, capturing Charlottesville residents and many notable historic events of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work included everything from the 1895 fire that destroyed the University of Virginia Rotunda to celebrations in Charlottesville marking the end of World War I. Holsinger died in Charlottesville in 1930.

Sources

Virginia Magazine. “Holsinger’s Charlottesville.” Accessed May 01, 2025. https://uvamagazine.org/articles/holsingers_charlottesville.