two miles past the current city limits in Henrico County. Through the decades, the avenue has had its ups and downs. As early as 1910, but mostly during the 1950s and '60s, many of the large houses were subdivided into apartments, or interior rooms and carriage houses were let to boarders. A few houses were demolished to make way for parking lots or building expansions, and several modern additions were tucked between earlier existing buildings. But protections put in place by the city by designating Monument Avenue as an Old and Historic Neighborhood have helped maintain the integrity of the neighborhood. In 1969, a group was incorporated called The Residents and Associates for the Preservation of Monument Avenue, led by Zayde Rennolds Dotts (Mrs. Walter Dotts, Jr.), granddaughter of Beulah and John Kerr Branch, who had commissioned a house on Monument Avenue in 1914 by the firm of John Russell Pope. In 1970 the group changed its name to the Monument Avenue Preservation Society (MAPS). From 1981 to 1988, just over of Monument Avenue between Malvern Avenue (VA 197) and Arthur Ashe Boulevard (VA 161) was officially designated as unsigned State Route 418. In August 2017, following statue-related violence incited by right and left wing extremist groups in Charlottesville, VA, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced that the city's Monument Avenue commission would look at providing contextual markers around the Confederate monuments as an option for dealing with the issues raised by statues honoring men who fought to preserve slavery and fracture the Union. At that time, removal of such statues was not permitted at the local level under Virginia law. In April 2020, the Democratic Party took over the Virginia legislature and created a law allowing local jurisdictions to remove monuments other than in cemeteries and the Virginia Military Institute that was to take effect in July 2020. On June 10, 2020, protestors tore down the statue of Jefferson Davis from its pedestal. On the first day the new law was in effect, July 1, 2020, Mayor Stoney had a State of Emergency extended to justify the removal of the statue of Stonewall Jackson by a city of Richmond contract, followed with the removal of the Maury statue and the defensive cannon display on July 2. Mayor Stoney then announced plans to remove a total of 11 confederate memorials. Mayor Stoney is under investigation for the awarding of a $1.8