Petersburg

Petersburg is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,458, most of whom are African Americans. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg (along with the city of Colonial Heights) with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes. The city is 21 miles (34 km) south of the commonwealth (state) capital city of Richmond. It sits at the fall line of the Appomattox River, a tributary of the longer, larger James River which flows east to meet the southern mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at the Hampton Roads harbor and the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1645, the Virginia House of Burgesses ordered the building of Fort Henry, which attracted traders and settlers to the area. Three settlements were incorporated into the Town of Petersburg in 1748. Petersburg rebuilt after a devastating 1815 fire and became a transportation and industrial hub. It was the final destination on the Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation System, which opened in 1816. When its Appomattox River port silted up, investors built an 8-mile railroad to City Point on the James River, which opened in 1838—one of four railroads built before the American Civil War.