Petersburg

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.

In 1860, it was the state's second-largest city, after Richmond. It connected commerce from Farmville, Virginia, at the foothills of the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains chain, to shipping into the Chesapeake Bay and North Atlantic Ocean.