Petersburg, Virginia

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Petersburg, Virginia
Official seal of Petersburg, Virginia
Seal
Nickname(s): The Cockade City
Location in the State of Virginia
Location in the State of Virginia
Coordinates: 37°12′46″N 77°24′1″W / 37.21278, -77.40028
Country United States
State Virginia
Founded December 17, 1748
Government
 - Mayor Annie M. Mickens
Area
 - City 23.2 sq mi (60.1 km²)
 - Land 22.9 sq mi (59.3 km²)
 - Water 0.3 sq mi (0.8 km²)
Elevation 134 ft (40 m)
Population (2004)
 - City 32,757
 - Density 1,411.9/sq mi (545.2/km²)
 - Metro 1,126,262
Time zone EST (UTC-5)
 - Summer (DST) EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP codes 23803-23806
Area code(s) 804
FIPS code 51-61832[1]
GNIS feature pee 1497087[2]
Website: http://www.petersburg-va.org

Petersburg is an independent city in Virginia, United States located on the Appomattox River. The population was 33,740 as of the 2000 census. It is in Tri-Cities area of the Richmond-Petersburg region and is a portion of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Petersburg (along with Colonial Heights) with neighboring Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Founding and early history

When the English arrived in Virginia in 1607, the region was occupied by a significant tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy, shown on Captain John Smith's map as Appamatuck. They were governed by a weroance, King Coquonosum, and by his sister, Queen Oppussoquionuske. This Algonquian people later had a town at Rohoic Creek (formerly Rohowick or Indian Towne Run), on the western edge of present-day Petersburg, and a short distance from the former Fort Henry that was established by the English on the south bank of the Appomattox River in 1646. Col. Abraham Wood sent several famous expeditions out from here in the following years to explore points to the west, as far as the Appalachians.

Some time around 1675, Peter Jones, who then commanded the fort and traded with the Indians, opened a trading post nearby, known as Peter's Point. The Bolling family also lived in the area from the early 1700s, and in 1733, Col. William Byrd II (who also founded Richmond at the same time) conceived the plans for a city at Peter's Point, to be renamed Petersburgh. The Virginia General Assembly formally organized it in 1748. The Battle of Petersburg in 1781 was a part of the British attempt to regain control of Virginia at the time of the Revolution. The adjacent towns of Blandford and Pocahontas were officially joined to Petersburg in 1784.

The Port of Petersburg became renowned as a commercial center for transporting and processing cotton, tobacco and metal, produced and shipped from the region. As travel technology developed, Petersburg became established as a railroad center, with links completed to Richmond to the north, Farmville and Lynchburg to the west, and Weldon, North Carolina to the south. The last major line was to the east, when the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad was completed in 1858.

Paved streets began to appear in 1813, soon followed by a canal bypassing the Appomattox Falls. Railroad lines linking the city to all points of the compass came next, gaslights were introduced in 1851, and a new municipal water system was installed by 1857. All these civic improvements helped attract and hold a substantial business community, based on manufacture of tobacco products, but also including cotton and flour mills and banking.

[edit] Civil War

Petersburg's 1860 population was 18,266, half of whom were black. Nearly one-third of those were free blacks, attracted to the city for the job opportunities in industries and trades. Petersburg had the highest percentage of free African American men and women in the slave-holding states of the Confederacy and the Union. Ninety percent of the white half were native Virginians. Their devotion to the cause during the War of 1812 inspired the nickname "Cockade City" in honor of the rosette they wore on their caps.

When the Civil War started in 1861, Petersburg's men again responded. They provided the South several infantry companies and artillery units, as well as three troops of cavalry. In 1864, Petersburg was a significant target during the Overland Campaign of Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Because of its railroads, Petersburg was the lifeline to Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy.

After the Battle of Cold Harbor, Grant stayed east of Richmond and headed south to Petersburg. Grant decided to cut off the rail lines into Petersburg, and thus Richmond's supplies. On June 9, troops under William F. "Baldy" Smith, of the 18th Corps, attacked the Dimmock Line, a set of defensive breastworks originally constructed in 1861 and 1862 to protect Petersburg against the Army of the Potomac under General George McClellan during the Peninsula Campaign. The Confederate troops numbered around 2,000. The lines could have easily been taken, but with the memory of Cold Harbor still fresh, Generals Smith and Hancock were reluctant to attack a fortified line. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard alerted Lee that he was facing the Army of the Potomac at Petersburg. Lee later arrived, and the 292-day Siege of Petersburg began.

On the Eastern Front, the trench lines were very close together. One soldier in the 48th Pennsylvania, a coal miner in civilian life, remarked aloud, "We could blow that battery into oblivion if we could dig a mine underneath it." Colonel Henry Pleasants, division commander, took this idea seriously and moved it up the chain of command. The plan was given the go ahead. On July 30, the mine was exploded. Due to poor Union leadership and the timely arrival of Confederate General William Mahone, the Union lost the Battle of the Crater. They suffered more than 4,000 casualties. This famous battle was portrayed in the 2003 film Cold Mountain.

In early April 1865, Union troops pushed successfully on their left flank to reach both the railroad to Weldon, North Carolina and the Southside Railroad. These were Petersburg's crucial lifelines to the rest of the Confederacy and supplies. With these developments, the Siege of Petersburg ended. The fall of Petersburg also signaled that the Confederate capital of Richmond could not be defended, and precipitated Robert E. Lee's last retreat march which ended later that month with surrender at Appomattox Court House and essentially, the end of the war. Confederate General Ambrose P. (A.P.) Hill died on the last day the Confederates occupied the Petersburg trenches. The use of an extended network of fortified entrenchments around Petersburg established a warfare precedent. Trenches would be used extensively in Europe during World War I (qv. Trench warfare).

[edit] Post-Civil War history

By the end of the war, the city was ringed with a series of fortifications. Many of these have been preserved within Petersburg National Battlefield Park and in neighboring Dinwiddie County.

In 1874 James M. Wilkerson, Sr. founded a business named the Wilkerson Undertaking Company. It continues to operate as the James M. Wilkerson Funeral Establishment, Inc. [1] and is one of the oldest black-owned firms in the United States.

Central State (psychiatric) Hospital and Fort Lee, housing the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps Center and School, are also located nearby.

The Petersburg area is home to Virginia State University, founded in 1882 (in Ettrick) as Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute. It was one of the first fully state-supported four-year institutions of higher learning for African Americans. John Mercer Langston was selected s the college's first president. An accomplished attorney and leader who had started his career in Ohio, Langston had been dean of the law school and acting president of Howard University in Washington, DC. In 1888, he was elected to the US Congress on the Republican ticket, the first African American to be elected to Congress from Virginia. He was also the last for nearly a century.

In 1958 Petersburg was named an "All American City" for its quality of life. Retail and industry prospered there until 1983. As in many American cities, racial tensions flared from 1968 to 1980, due in part to efforts to desegregate public schools, which the state resisted at the top levels. Deindustrialization and structural changes cost many jobs in the city. White families continued their movement to the suburbs and to Richmond.

In 1985 city leaders were unable to keep Brown & Williamson tobacco company, a top employer, from relocating to Macon, Georgia. The city in 1986 failed in its attempt to annex a large section of neighboring Prince George County to enlarge the schools and tax base. When negotiations soured in 1989 to build a new regional mall in Petersburg, numerous remaining retail merchants relocated to the new Southpark mall area, north of town. Petersburg suffered an economic setback.

As of 2007, Petersburg is an evolving small city. The former downtown area, once vibrant near the north end of Sycamore Street, had declined into desolation by the late 20th century because suburban development drew off retail. Structural changes in industries caused loss of local jobs.

Like some other old, East Coast small downtowns, lately Petersburg has been having a rebirth. Many restaurants, specialty shops, and up-scale apartments and condos have been developed, with more underway. Southern Living magazine recently featured this area, as did HGTV's "What You Get For The Money".

The area has also become a booming arts center. It has both an area Arts League as well as a Performing Arts Center and restaurant, the Sycamore Rouge. The city celebrates a "Friday of the Arts" on the second Friday of each month, in which many locations feature local artwork and live music.

Wellotson Holdings, LLC, an investment firm based in Petersburg, has purchased many buildings in the area. It has renovated several into stores, restaurants, and a large antique mall, called the Oak Antique Mall. Wellotson Holdings is renovating other buildings in Old Towne for both housing and commercial development.

[edit] Location

Located along the eastern seaboard, approximately halfway between New York and Florida, Petersburg is at the juncture of Interstates 95 and 85, just 23 miles south of Virginia's state capital, Richmond. The city is one of 13 jurisdictions that comprise the Richmond-Petersburg Metropolitan Statistical Area. Petersburg is a part of the Tri-cities, Virginia regional economy known as the "Appomattox Basin" that includes the counties of Dinwiddie and Prince George, the southern part of Chesterfield County, and the cities of Hopewell and Colonial Heights.

[edit] Industry and revitalization

Petersburg has a long history as an industrial center for Virginia. It was home to many tobacco companies, including tobacco giant Brown & Williamson. The Southern Chemical Co., the original maker of Fleets Phoso-soda (used in hospitals world wide), was a well known brand name associated with the town. Arnold Pen Co., Seward Trunk Co.,Titmus Optical, Brenco Ball bearings, and Boehringer Ingelheim, one of the top twenty pharmaceutical manufacturers, call Petersburg home.

Since the departure of Brown & Williamson, Petersburg has invested heavily in historic preservation of architecture, as the city has a large inventory of 18th, 19th and 20th century structures in its historic neighborhoods. Groups like Historic Petersburg Foundation and Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities have worked to restore many of the city's buildings.

[edit] Geography

Petersburg is located at 37°12′46″N 77°24′1″W / 37.21278, -77.40028 (37.21295, -77.400417)[3].

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 23.2 square miles (60.1 km²), of which, 22.9 square miles (59.3 km²) of it is land and 0.3 square miles (0.8 km²) of it (1.29%) is water.

Petersburg is located on the Appomattox River at the fall line, which marks the area where an upland region (continental bedrock) and a coastal plain (coastal alluvia) meet. The fall line is typically prominent where a river crosses its rocky boundary as there are rapids or waterfalls. River boats could not travel any farther inland, making the location the head of navigation. The need of a port and abundant supply of water power causes settlements to develop where a river crosses the fall line.

The most prominent example of fall line settlement was the establishment of the cities along the eastern coast of the United States where the Appalachian Rise and the coastal plains meet.

[edit] Adjacent counties / Independent city

[edit] National protected area

[edit] Demographics

As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 33,740 people, 13,799 households, and 8,513 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,474.6 people per square mile (569.4/km²). There were 15,955 housing units at an average density of 697.3/sq mi (269.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 18.52% White, 78.97% African American, 0.20% Native American, 0.70% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.59% from other races, and 1.00% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.37% of the population.

In 2005 Petersburg's population was 18.4% non-Hispanic whites. African-Americans were a slightly smaller percentage of the city's total population, now only numbering 78.6% of the total. 0.9% of the population was Asian and 2.1% were Latino.

There were 13,799 households out of which 27.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 30.1% were married couples living together, 26.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.3% were non-families. 32.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.98.

In the city, the population was spread out with 25.1% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 22.9% from 45 to 64, and 15.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 84.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 78.7 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $28,851, and the median income for a family was $33,955. Males had a median income of $27,859 versus $21,882 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,989. About 16.7% of families and 19.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 27.1% of those under age 18 and 15.8% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] Famous residents of Petersburg

Template:!Please add people in alphabetical order by last name, list with names first, then associations

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links


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