Petersburg, Virginia
Petersburg, Virginia Official seal of Petersburg, Virginia Petersburg, Virginia is positioned in Shenandoah Valley Petersburg, Virginia - Petersburg, Virginia Petersburg is an autonomous town/city in the U.S.
As of the 2010 census, the populace was 32,420. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg (along with the town/city of Colonial Heights) with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes.
The city's unique industrialized past and its locale as a transit hub combined to problematic richness for Virginia and the region.
Early in the colonial era, Petersburg was the final destination on the Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System because of its locale on the Appomattox River at the fall line (the head of navigation of rivers on the U.S.
It connected commerce as far inland as Farmville, Virginia to shipping on the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. For similar reasons, Fort Henry was assembled at Petersburg to protect the river.
As barns s were constructed in the state in the 1830s, Petersburg was advanced as a primary transfer point for both north-south and east-west competitors.
Several of the earliest predecessors of the area's other primary Class 1 barns , Norfolk Southern, also met at Petersburg.
During the American Civil War, because of the barns network, Petersburg was key to Union plans to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond.
Battlefield sites are positioned throughout the town/city and encircling areas, partly preserved as Petersburg National Battlefield.
Petersburg had one of the earliest no-charge black settlements in the state at Pocahontas Island.
Two Baptist churches in the city, whose congregations were established in the late 18th century, are among the earliest black congregations and churches in the United States. In the 20th century, these and other black churches were leaders in the nationwide Civil Rights Movement.
In the post-bellum period, a historically black college which later advanced as Virginia State University was established close-by in Ettrick in Chesterfield County.
Petersburg remains a transit hub, with the network of region highways including Interstate Highways 85, 95, and 295, and U.S.
Both CSX and NS rail systems maintain transit centers at Petersburg.
Amtrak serves the town/city with everyday Northeast Corridor trains to Norfolk, Virginia, and long-distance routes from states to the south. In the early 21st century, Petersburg leaders were highlighting the city's historical attractions for tradition tourism, and the industrialized sites reachable by the transit infrastructure.[not verified in body] Military activeness has been period by the federal government at close-by Fort Lee, home of the United States Army's Sustainment Center of Excellence, and the Army's Logistics Branch, Ordnance, Quartermaster, and Transportation Corps.
Main article: History of Petersburg, Virginia Petersburg was established at a strategic point at the fall line of the Appomattox River and settled by English colonists.
The Virginia General Assembly formally incorporated both Petersburg and contiguous Blandford on December 17, 1748.
During the American Revolutionary War, the British drive to regain control erupted in the Battle of Blanford in 1781, which started just east of Petersburg.
Although the British drove the Americans from Blanford and Petersburg, they did not regain a strategic favor in the war.
After the war, in 1784 Petersburg took in the contiguous suburbs of Blandford (also called Blanford) and Pocahontas and the suburb of Ravenscroft, which became neighborhoods of the city.
An region known as Gillfield was took in in 1798. Residents' devotion to the cause amid the War of 1812 led to the formation of the Petersburg Volunteers who prestigious themselves in action at the Siege of Fort Meigs on May 5, 1813.
Because of the availability of jobs in Petersburg, many no-charge citizens of color in Virginia migrated to the burgeoning urban community.
They established First Baptist (1774) and Gillfield Baptist Church (1797), the first and second earliest black congregations in the town/city and two of the earliest in the nation. The black churches were the first Baptist churches established in Petersburg. For years the center of the no-charge black residentiary region was Pocahontas Island, a peninsula on the north shore of the Appomattox River.
The Port of Petersburg became famous as a commercial center for refining cotton, tobacco and metal, then shipping products out of the region.
The town/city became an meaningful industrial center in a mostly agricultural state with several primary cities.
As travel technology advanced in the mid-19th century, Petersburg became established as a barns center, with lines instead of to Richmond to the north, Farmville and Lynchburg to the west, and Weldon, North Carolina to the south.
The last primary line was instead of in 1858 to the east, with the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad connecting to the ocean port of Norfolk.
At the time of the American Civil War, Petersburg was the second-largest town/city in Virginia after the capital Richmond, and the seventh-largest town/city in the Confederacy.
Petersburg's populace had the highest percentage of no-charge African Americans of any town/city in the Confederacy and the biggest number of no-charge blacks in the Mid-Atlantic region. When the Civil War began in 1861, Petersburg was strategic in supporting the Confederate accomplishment.
In April 1861 more than 300 no-charge African Americans of Petersburg volunteered to work on the fortifications of Norfolk, Virginia under their own leader.
The various barns s made Petersburg a lifeline for Richmond, the Confederate capital.
After his defeat at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Grant remained east of Richmond and moved south to Petersburg.
Grant intended to cut the rail lines into Petersburg, stopping Richmond's supplies.
Lee appeared with the fabled Army of Northern Virginia, and the 292-day Siege of Petersburg began.
The fall of Petersburg meant that Richmond could no longer be defended, and Lee attempted to lead his men south to join up with Confederate forces in North Carolina.
In the years after the Civil War, many freedmen migrated to Petersburg, beginning various churches, businesses and establishments.
This resulted in two primary enhance establishments in Petersburg, as the council invested for education and welfare.
In 1882, the council founded Virginia State University in close-by Ettrick as Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute.
The limitations of Petersburg's small geographic region and adjacency to Richmond were structural enigma which hampered it in adapting to primary economic shifts in the 20th century.
Soon after World War I started, the US Army established Camp Lee just outside of Petersburg in Prince George County for training draftees.
During WWII Camp Picket was established west of Petersburg near the small non-urban town of Blackstone, and the Defense Supply Center, Richmond opened in neighboring Chesterfield.
In 1949 Petersburg businessmen and politician, Remmie Arnold, the president and owner of the Arnold Pen Company, at the time one of the biggest manufacturers of fountain pens, launched a campaign for Governor of Virginia.
As a Petersburg town/city councilman, Arnold had pushed through a budgetary increase earmarked for equality and fair access for enhance housing and recreational facilities for everyone including citizens of color, and increased budgetary considerations for the black schools in Petersburg.
Even after the Great Migration of blacks to northern jobs and cities, Petersburg was 40 percent black in 1960.
Major black churches, such as First Baptist and Gillfield Baptist, formed the moral center of the Civil Rights Movement in Petersburg, which attained strength in mid-century and was a primary center of action.
Walker also established the Petersburg Improvement Association (PIA), modeled on the Montgomery Improvement Association in Alabama. According to Walker and other close associates of King, Petersburg had played an meaningful part , a kind of blueprint for the nationwide civil rights.
African Americans in Petersburg struggled, with federal government support, to desegregate enhance schools and facilities.
Through sit-ins in the bus terminal in 1960, the PIA attained agreement by the president of the Bus Terminal Restaurants to desegregate lunch counters in Petersburg and a several other cities. White Virginia officials at the top levels resisted school integration following the 1954 US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v.
De-industrialization, revamping of barns s and nationwide structural economic shifts cost many jobs in the city, as happened in various older industrialized cities athwart the North and Midwest.
Following the assassination of King in 1968, Petersburg was the first town/city to designate his birthday as a holiday, an observance that is now a nationwide holiday. Projected industrialized evolution of large tracts of vacant territory in the took in areas did not materialize.
During the 1993 Virginia tornado outbreak, Petersburg suffered an F4 tornado that swept into the downtown, seriously damaging a number of historic buildings and businesses.
As of 2007, Petersburg has continued to evolve as a small city, even as the nature of its commercial activities changed.
Downtown Petersburg, known as Old Towne, has had new businesses established as citizens appreciate the compact core.
In 2016, Petersburg faced the prospect of large-scale cuts to enhance services after a state audit found a $12 million budget shortfall and the prospect of insolvency by the end of the year. According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 23.2 square miles (60.1 km2), of which 22.9 square miles (59.3 km2) of territory and 0.2 square miles (0.5 km2) (1.1%) is water. Petersburg is positioned on the Appomattox River at the fall line, which marks the region where the Piedmont region (continental bedrock) and the Atlantic coastal plain (unconsolidated sediments) meet.
Located along the Eastern Seaboard, roughly halfway between New York and Georgia, Petersburg is 23 miles (37 km) south of Virginia's state capital, Richmond, and is at the juncture of Interstates 95 and 85.
Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the town/city of Petersburg with the metros/cities of Colonial Heights and Hopewell, and neighboring Dinwiddie and Prince George counties for statistical purposes.
Petersburg is also a part of the Tri-Cities county-wide economy known as the "Appomattox Basin", which contains a portion of southeastern Chesterfield County.
Petersburg National Battlefield Park (part) As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 32,420 citizens living in the city.
The town/city has a long history as an industrialized center for Virginia.
A county-wide bus between Petersburg and downtown Richmond is active.
Richmond International Airport, positioned less than 30 miles north of city, serves travelers from the city.
Petersburg Old Town Historic District Petersburg, Virginia is positioned in Virginia Petersburg, Virginia 1 and VA 36, Petersburg, Virginia Since the departure of the tobacco business Brown & Williamson, Petersburg has invested heavily in historic preservation of its rich range of architecture.
Groups such as Historic Petersburg Foundation and Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities have worked to restore many of the city's buildings and recognized meaningful districts.
The Petersburg Old Town Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as are other historic districts.
It has an Arts League and a performing arts center, Sycamore Rouge, "Petersburg's Professional Theatre for the Community".
Petersburg is home to the Petersburg Generals of the Coastal Plain League, a collegiate summer baseball league.
Petersburg City Public Schools Note: This section includes a listing only of the current and some of the past enhance schools serving the autonomous town/city of Petersburg, Virginia, all operating under the name of Petersburg City Public Schools.
Petersburg High School Independent schools in the Petersburg region presently include: Customs House, now serving as the Petersburg City Hall The town/city of Petersburg has a council-manager form of town/city government.
Therefore, the town/city is subdivided into seven wards and each ward elects one member each to the town/city council.
The town/city council then hires a town/city manager.
The town/city council elects one of its members to serve as mayor and one member to serve as vice mayor, but generally those positions only have the authority of being chair and vice chair of the town/city council.
Because Petersburg has a dominant black populace (which votes heavily Democratic), the town/city has been a Democratic stronghold.
The town/city has many Baptist churches, including the earliest black congregation in the United States (First Baptist Church on Harrison Street).
There are various theological traditions that have historic congregations in Petersburg.
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South (known as the Southern Methodist Church denomination) was started in Petersburg on Washington Street. There is also Edgehill Church of Christ and Petersburg Church of Christ Two of the earliest Pentecostal churches in Petersburg are Bethesda Bible Way Church on Harding Street and Zion Memorial Apostolic Church on Youngs Road. The Petersburg Ward, a congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, meets on Johnson Road.
John Mercer Langston (1829 1899), abolitionist, activist, educator and politician: first dean of Howard University law school, first president of Virginia State University, in 1888 the first black voted for United States Congress from Virginia; lived here.
William Mahone, 19th-century barns builder, Confederate General (hero of the Battle of the Crater), and politician; the mayor of Petersburg, where he and his wife Otelia Butler Mahone made their home for many years.
Moses Malone, NBA Hall of Fame player, born here and won state basketball championships at Petersburg High School.
Army general, diplomat, and presidential candidate, was born close-by in Dinwiddie County and spent much time in Petersburg in his youth.
National Register of Historic Places listings in Petersburg, Virginia "Petersburg, VA (PTB)".
"Gillfield Baptist Church, Petersburg, VA", Virginia Commonwealth University Library, 2008, accessed 22 December 2008 Henry Chase, "Proud, no-charge and black: Petersburg - visiting the Virginia locale of the biggest number of 19th century no-charge [blacks]", American Visions, Jun Jul 1994, accessed 27 December 2008 "Black Confederate Soldiers of Petersburg", Petersburg Express, accessed 22 December 2008 "Civil War history lesson: Petersburg, Va., embraces and expands its past", Boston.com, 9 March 2005, accessed 22 December 2008 Henry Chase, "Proud, no-charge and black: Petersburg visiting the Virginia locale of the biggest number of 19th century no-charge slaves", American Visions, Jun Jul 1994, accessed 27 December 2008 "City on the brink: Petersburg can't pay its bills and time is running out".
"PETERSBURG VA Private Schools".
"Petersburg, Virginia Koppen Climate Classification (Weatherbase)".
A Short History of the Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg, VA, Petersburg, VA: Virginia Print Co., 1937 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Petersburg, Virginia.
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Cities in Virginia - Greater Richmond Region - black history of Virginia - Geography of Richmond, Virginia - History of Virginia - Petersburg, Virginia - Populated places on the Underground Railroad - Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia - National Register of Historic Places in Petersburg, Virginia
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