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143-635: The Virginia Central Railroad was an early railroad in the U.S. state of Virginia that operated between 1850 and 1868 from Richmond westward for 206 miles (332 km) to Covington . Chartered in 1836 as the Louisa Railroad by the Virginia General Assembly , the railroad began near the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad 's line and expanded westward to Orange County , reaching Gordonsville by 1840. In 1849,

286-489: A charter for a new colony to the Virginia Company of London . The group financed an expedition under Christopher Newport that established a settlement named Jamestown in 1607. Though more settlers soon joined, many were ill-prepared for the dangers of the new settlement. As the colony's president, John Smith secured food for the colonists from nearby tribes, but after he left in 1609, this trade stopped and

429-603: A first language . Spanish is the next most commonly spoken language, with 7.5% (611,831) of Virginia households, though age is a factor; 8.7% (120,560) of Virginians under age eighteen speak Spanish. Of Spanish speakers, 60.6% reported speaking English "very well", but again, of those under age eighteen, 78.7% speak English "very well". Arabic was the third most commonly spoken language with around 0.8% of residents, followed by Chinese languages and Vietnamese each with over 0.7%, and then Korean and Tagalog , just under 0.7% and 0.6% respectively. Rockfish Gap Joining

572-663: A group of Spanish Jesuits , explored the Chesapeake Bay during the 16th century. To help counter Spain's colonies in the Caribbean , Queen Elizabeth I of England supported Walter Raleigh 's 1584 expedition to the Atlantic coast of North America . The name "Virginia" was used by Captain Arthur Barlowe in the expedition's report, and may have been suggested by Raleigh or Elizabeth (perhaps noting her status as

715-593: A racially segregated society , and in 1902 rewrote the state constitution to include a poll tax and other voter registration measures that effectively disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites. New economic forces meanwhile industrialized the Commonwealth. Virginian James Albert Bonsack invented the tobacco cigarette rolling machine in 1880 leading to new large-scale production centered around Richmond. Railroad magnate Collis Potter Huntington founded Newport News Shipbuilding in 1886, which

858-425: A raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia , in an attempt to start a slave revolt across the southern states. The polarized national response to his raid, capture, trial, and execution that December marked a tipping point for many who believed slavery would need to be ended by force. Abraham Lincoln 's 1860 election further convinced many southern supporters of slavery that his opposition to its expansion would ultimately mean

1001-569: A rail trail or bikeway. In November 2020 the old tunnel and a short trail running through it were opened to the public. In the early 20th century, a road which was designated U.S. Route 250 in 1935 was built across the gap. In 1972 and 1973, sections of the new Interstate 64 were completed across Afton Mountain at Rockfish Gap. Rockfish Gap has been the site of several large multiple vehicle collisions on Interstate 64 during fog conditions on Afton Mountain, which peaks at about 1,915 feet above sea level. In April 1992, there were 2 fatalities in

1144-402: A series of ambush-style killings between colonists and natives under Chief Powhatan and his brother began, resulting in mass starvation in the colony that winter. By the end of the colony's first fourteen years, over eighty percent of the roughly eight thousand settlers transported there had died. Demand for exported tobacco , however, fueled the need for more workers. Starting in 1618,

1287-433: A 60-car pileup. In late April 1998, another wreck involving 65 cars sent 40 people to area hospitals. Less than three weeks later, there was another 18-car crash. Fog was a factor in all three incidents. Motorists approaching from lower elevations sometimes suddenly encounter a dense fog as they approach the summit of the gap. A lighting system within the pavement to help designate lanes automatically activated by fog sensors

1430-722: A bloody Confederate victory. Union General George B. McClellan organized the Army of the Potomac , which landed on the Virginia Peninsula in March 1862 and reached the outskirts of Richmond that June. With Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston wounded in fighting outside the city, command of his Army of Northern Virginia fell to Robert E. Lee . Over the next month, Lee drove the Union army back , and starting that September led

1573-633: A century following the Reconstruction era , both major political parties have been competitive in Virginia since the repeal of Jim Crow laws in the 1970s. Virginia's state legislature is the Virginia General Assembly , which was established in July 1619, making it the oldest current law-making body in North America . Unlike other states, cities and counties in Virginia function as equals, but

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1716-439: A century, at a magnitude of 5.8, struck central Virginia on August 23, 2011 . 35   million years ago, a bolide impacted what is now eastern Virginia. The resulting Chesapeake Bay impact crater may explain what earthquakes and subsidence the region does experience. A meteor impact is also theorized as the source of Lake Drummond , the largest of the two natural lakes in the state . The Commonwealth's carbonate rock

1859-593: A division point for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway . The temporary track over Rockfish Gap was used until the Blue Ridge Tunnel's opening in April 1858, and the last train to use the temporary track did so on the evening of April 12. That night, the connection with the completed Blue Ridge Railroad was made, and on the morning of the 13th, the mail train was the first train routed through the tunnel. With

2002-633: A drainage divide between southeast-flowing streams that drain to the James River and northwest-flowing streams in the Shenandoah River system. The scenic Skyline Drive , which runs north through Shenandoah National Park to Front Royal , and the Blue Ridge Parkway , which runs south to a point near Cherokee, North Carolina , each generally following the mountain ridgetops, meet a short distance north of Rockfish Gap (such that

2145-539: A governor who ignored the assembly and sent him back to England against his will. William Berkeley was named governor in 1642, just as the turmoil of the English Civil War and Interregnum permitted the colony greater autonomy. As a supporter of the king, Berkeley welcomed other Cavaliers who fled to Virginia. He surrendered to Parliamentarians in 1652, but after the 1660 Restoration made him governor again, he blocked assembly elections and exacerbated

2288-680: A halt and the Covington and Ohio's line remained incomplete. The Virginia Central was one of the most important railroads for the Confederacy during the war, as it linked the fertile Shenandoah farmland of Virginia to Richmond and points eastward, enabling supplies and troops to easily be transported to nearby campaigns. The Blue Ridge tunnels and the Virginia Central were key tools in the fast mobilization of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson 's famous " foot cavalry ". Soon after

2431-618: A major urban business and shopping center in Tysons , Virginia's largest office market. Neighboring Prince William County , with over 450,000 residents, is Virginia's second-most populous county and home to Marine Corps Base Quantico , the FBI Academy , and Manassas National Battlefield Park . Arlington County is the smallest self-governing county in the U.S. by land area, and local politicians have proposed reorganizing it as an independent city due to its high density. Loudoun County

2574-437: A national park, but is protected by both state and federal legislation and the inter-state Chesapeake Bay Program . Virginia is divided into 95   counties and 38   independent cities , which the U.S. Census Bureau describes as county-equivalents . This general method of treating cities and counties on par with each other is unique to Virginia and stretches back to the influence of Williamsburg and Norfolk in

2717-613: A native of Louisa County, who served until 1841. After Harris' term, Charles Y. Kimbrough, also from Louisa, served until 1845, when Edmund Fontaine was elected to office upon Kimbrough's death. Edmund Fontaine would continue to serve as president of the Louisa Railroad and its successor until after the American Civil War . While the Blue Ridge Mountain section was being breached, the Louisa Railroad

2860-642: A referendum and went into effect in 1971. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African American elected as governor in the United States, and in 1992, Bobby Scott became the first Black congressman from Virginia since 1888. The expansion of federal government offices into Northern Virginia's suburbs during the Cold War boosted the region's population and economy. The Central Intelligence Agency outgrew their offices in Foggy Bottom during

3003-730: A ruling grade of 5.3%) and sharp curves (minimum radius of 300 feet (91 m)), thereby limiting speeds to around 5–7 miles per hour (8.0–11.3 km/h). Three small tank locomotives were ordered for the temporary track, one of which was supplied by the Tredegar Iron Works of Richmond, the Joseph R. Anderson , and two from Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia , the Baldwin and C.R. Mason . A second temporary track 1 ⁄ 2 -mile-long (0.80 km) around

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3146-496: A state of disrepair due to its constant use and the limited availability of supplies for upkeep. Union raids also destroyed many sections of the line, including the majority of the railroad's depots, with notable exceptions for those at Gordonsville and Charlottesville, two key points of trade. The defeat of Jubal Early 's forces at Waynesboro led to the destruction of much of the bridges and line between Staunton and Keswick , and as Union armies converged on Richmond, further damage

3289-943: A strategy called " massive resistance ", and the General Assembly passed a package of laws in 1956 that cut off funding to local schools that desegregated , causing some to close. Courts ruled the strategy unconstitutional, and on February 2, 1959, Black students integrated schools in Arlington and Norfolk , where they were known as the Norfolk 17 . County leaders in Prince Edward, however, instead shut their school system in June 1959. The Supreme Court ordered them to reopen and integrate their public schools , which finally happened in September 1964. Federal passage of

3432-619: A strong effect on eastern and southeastern coastal areas, making the climate there warmer but also more constant. Most of Virginia's recorded extremes in temperature and precipitation have occurred in the Blue Ridge Mountains and areas west. Virginia receives an average of 43.47 inches (110 cm) of precipitation annually, with the Shenandoah Valley being the state's driest region. Virginia has around 35–45 days with thunderstorms annually, and storms are common in

3575-497: A temporary track built over Rockfish Gap . This connected the railroad's eastern division with its expanding line across the Blue Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley . Having reached Clifton Forge by 1857, the railroad began operating the completed Blue Ridge Railroad in 1858 and continued preparing for further expansion until the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861. As a prime target for Federal raids by Union Cavalry ,

3718-551: A water gap near Goshen at Great North Mountain by 1855, and had reached Millboro by 1856. This western section of the line included an additional three tunnels, and a temporary track approximately 1.25 miles (2.01 km) long was used at Millboro while the tunnel was being completed. By 1857, the railroad had reached a point known as Jackson's River Station , at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains . This location would later be known as Clifton Forge and become

3861-616: Is called the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, named after the river of the same name that flows through it. The Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, south of the Allegheny Plateau . In this region, rivers flow northwest into the Ohio River basin. The Virginia Seismic Zone has not had a history of regular earthquake activity. Earthquakes are rarely above 4.5 in magnitude . The Commonwealth's largest earthquake in at least

4004-480: Is filled with more than 4,000 limestone caves , ten of which are open for tourism, including the popular Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns . Virginia's iconic Natural Bridge is the remaining roof of a collapsed limestone cave. Coal mining takes place in the three mountainous regions. More than 72   million tons of other non-fuel resources, such as slate , kyanite , sand, or gravel, were mined in Virginia in 2020 . The largest known deposits of uranium in

4147-545: Is the fastest-growing county in the state. In western Virginia, Roanoke city and Montgomery County , part of the Blacksburg–Christiansburg metropolitan area , both have surpassed a population of 100,000 since 2018. On the western edge of the Tidewater region is Virginia's capital, Richmond , which has a population of around 230,000 in its city proper and over 1.3   million in its metropolitan area. On

4290-633: The Appalachian Mountains . The state's capital is Richmond and its most populous city is Virginia Beach . Its most populous subdivision is Fairfax County , part of Northern Virginia , where slightly over a third of Virginia's population of 8.7   million live. Eastern Virginia is part of the Atlantic Plain , and the Middle Peninsula forms the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay . Central Virginia lies predominantly in

4433-647: The Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge , which marks the beginning of the Outer Banks . State agencies control about one-third of protected land in the state, and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation manages over 75,900 acres (307.2 km ) in forty Virginia state parks and 59,222 acres (239.7 km ) in 65 Natural Area Preserves , plus three undeveloped parks. Breaks Interstate Park crosses

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4576-647: The Blue Ridge Railroad was chartered to construct a line over the Blue Ridge Mountains for the Louisa Railroad which reached the base of the Blue Ridge in 1852. After a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court , the Louisa Railroad was allowed to expand eastward from a point near Doswell to Richmond. Renamed as the Virginia Central Railroad in 1850, the railroad bypassed the under construction Blue Ridge Railroad via

4719-744: The Church Hill Tunnel in Richmond southeast down the peninsula through Williamsburg to Newport News , where the company developed coal piers on the harbors of Hampton Roads and Newport News. The Richmond and Alleghany Railroad , which ran from Clifton Forge to Richmond following the James River and the old James River and Kanawha Canal , was merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio in 1889. On this line, trains descended nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) in elevation to Richmond following

4862-699: The Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965), and their later enforcement by the Justice Department , helped end racial segregation in Virginia and overturn Jim Crow laws . In 1967, the Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on interracial marriage with Loving v. Virginia . In 1968, Governor Mills Godwin called a commission to rewrite the state constitution. The new constitution, which banned discrimination and removed articles that now violated federal law, passed in

5005-560: The Committee of Nine . During the post-war Reconstruction era , African Americans were able to unite in communities, particularly around Richmond , Danville , and the Tidewater region , and take a greater role in Virginia society; many achieved some land ownership during the 1870s. Virginia adopted a constitution in 1868 which guaranteed political, civil, and voting rights , and provided for free public schools. However, with many railroad lines and other infrastructure destroyed during

5148-862: The Korean War , and moved to Langley in 1961, in part due to a decision by the National Security Council that the agency relocate outside the District of Columbia. The Pentagon , built in Arlington during World War II as the headquarters of the Department of Defense, was struck by a hijacked plane in the September 11, 2001 attacks . Mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and in Virginia Beach in 2019 led to passage of gun control measures in 2020. Racial injustice and

5291-550: The Piedmont , the foothill region of the Blue Ridge Mountains , which cross the western and southwestern parts of the state. The fertile Shenandoah Valley fosters the state's most productive agricultural counties, while the economy in Northern Virginia is driven by technology companies and U.S. federal government agencies. Hampton Roads is also the site of the region's main seaport and Naval Station Norfolk ,

5434-804: The Rivanna at Charlottesville , with inns or taverns spaced about 10 miles apart. By 1782, carriages could cross the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap. In 1818, President of the United States James Monroe , former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison , and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Marshall joined 24 other dignitaries at a meeting held in the Mountain Top Tavern at Rockfish Gap. Under Jefferson's leadership, they selected nearby Charlottesville as

5577-543: The Shenandoah Valley to the Piedmont region of the state, it is the site of the mountain crossing of Interstate 64 , U.S. Route 250 , and the former Blue Ridge Railroad which later became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and is currently part of the CSX line. With an elevation of about 1,900 feet (580 m), it is one of the lowest gaps between Manassas Gap and the James River . Rockfish Gap lies along

5720-635: The Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville . The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the Commonwealth, the tallest being Mount Rogers at 5,729 feet (1,746 m). The Ridge-and-Valley region is west of the mountains, carbonate rock based, and includes the Massanutten Mountain ridge and the Great Appalachian Valley , which

5863-723: The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria had over 5,050. High-school student Barbara Rose Johns started a strike in 1951 at her underfunded and segregated school in Prince Edward County . The protests led Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill to file a lawsuit against the county . Their case joined Brown v. Board of Education at the Supreme Court, which rejected the doctrine of " separate but equal " in 1954. The segregationist establishment, led by Senator Harry F. Byrd and his Byrd Organization , reacted with

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6006-944: The Tutelo , who spoke Siouan , to the west. In response to threats from these other groups to their trade network, thirty or so Virginia Algonquian -speaking tribes consolidated during the 1570s under Wahunsenacawh, known in English as Chief Powhatan . Powhatan controlled more than 150 settlements that had a total population of around 15,000 in 1607. Three-fourths of the native population in Virginia, however, died from smallpox and other Old World diseases during that century, disrupting their oral traditions and complicating research into earlier periods. Additionally, many primary sources, including those that mention Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas , were created by Europeans, who may have held biases or misunderstood native social structures and customs. Several European expeditions, including

6149-607: The Virginia big-eared bat , the state mammal . The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial native to the United States and Canada, and the native Appalachian cottontail was recognized in 1992 as a distinct species of rabbit, one of three found in the state. Whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been recorded in Virginia's coastal waters, with bottlenose dolphins being the most frequent aquatic mammals . Virginia's bird fauna comprises 422 counted species, of which 359 are regularly occurring and 214 have bred in Virginia, while

6292-500: The breeding of slaves , often through rape, a profitable business. Slaves in the Richmond area were also forced into industrial jobs, including mining and shipbuilding. The failed slave uprisings of Gabriel Prosser in 1800, George Boxley in 1815, and Nat Turner in 1831, however, marked the growing resistance to slavery. Afraid of further uprisings, Virginia's government in the 1830s encouraged free Blacks to migrate to Liberia . On October 16, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led

6435-431: The class divide by disenfranchising and restricting the movement of indentured servants, who made up around eighty percent of the workforce. On the colony's frontier, tribes like the Tutelo and Doeg were being squeezed by Seneca raiders from the north, leading to more confrontations with colonists. In 1676, several hundred working-class followers of Nathaniel Bacon , upset by Berkeley's refusal to retaliate against

6578-606: The headright system tried to solve this by granting colonists farmland for their help attracting indentured servants . Enslaved Africans were first sold in Virginia in 1619. Though other Africans arrived as indentured servants and could be freed after four to seven years, the basis for lifelong slavery was developed in legal cases like those of John Punch in 1640 and John Casor in 1655. Laws passed in Jamestown defined slavery as race-based in 1661, as inherited maternally in 1662, and as enforceable by death in 1669. From

6721-766: The siege of Yorktown . His surrender on October 19, 1781, led to peace negotiations in Paris and secured the independence of the colonies. Virginians were instrumental in writing the United States Constitution : James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789. Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788. The three-fifths compromise ensured that Virginia, with its large number of slaves, initially had

6864-446: The state fish . Downhill in the Piedmont, stripeback darter and Roanoke bass become common, as do swampfish , bluespotted sunfish , and pirate perch in the Tidewater . The Chesapeake Bay hosts clams, oysters, and 350 species of saltwater and estuarine fish , including the bay's most abundant finfish, the Bay anchovy , as well as the invasive blue catfish . An estimated 317 million Chesapeake blue crabs live in

7007-497: The "Virgin Queen" or that they viewed the land as being untouched) or related to an Algonquin phrase, Wingandacoa or Windgancon , or leader's name, Wingina , as heard by the expedition. The name initially applied to the entire coastal region from South Carolina in the south to Maine in the north, along with the island of Bermuda . Raleigh's colony failed, but the potential financial and strategic gains still captivated many English policymakers. In 1606, King James I issued

7150-443: The 12th withdrew towards the Army of the Potomac . Little damage was done to the tracks during the raid, and the damage was soon repaired and the line returned to operation. Reconstruction of the Virginia Central began soon after the Confederacy's collapse, and under the permission of General Edward Ord , repairs commenced on April 21, 1865. Construction of temporary bridges and repairs were made swiftly, enabling trains to run to

7293-457: The 1862 Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War . The original tunnel was replaced by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway with a new one on a slightly different alignment in the mid-20th century. The railroad is now owned by CSX Transportation and is operated under lease to Buckingham Branch Railroad , a Virginia-based short-line railroad . The old tunnel (aka Blue Ridge Tunnel ) is still intact and has been considered for possible re-use as

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7436-441: The 1930s to over one million by the 2010s. Native carnivorans include black bears , who have a population of around five to six thousand in the state, as well as bobcats , coyotes , both gray and red foxes , raccoons , weasels and skunks . Rodents include groundhogs , nutria , beavers , both gray squirrels and fox squirrels , chipmunks, and Allegheny woodrats , while the seventeen bat species include brown bats and

7579-416: The 2022–2023 winter season. Climate change in Virginia is leading to higher temperatures year-round as well as more heavy rain and flooding events. Urban heat islands can be found in many Virginia cities and suburbs, particularly in neighborhoods linked to historic redlining . The air in Virginia has statistically improved since 1998. The closure and conversion of coal power plants in Virginia and

7722-427: The Appalachian Mountains can lead to significant snowfalls across the state, such as the January 2016 blizzard , which created the state's highest recorded one-day snowfall of 36.6 inches (93 cm) near Bluemont . On average, cities in Virginia can receive between 5.8–12.3 inches (15–31 cm) of snow annually, but recent winters have seen below-average snowfalls, and much of Virginia had no measurable snow during

7865-678: The Black population was reduced by the Great Migration to northern industrial cities in the first half of the 20th century, since 1965 there has been a reverse migration of Blacks returning south . The Commonwealth has the highest number of Black-white interracial marriages in the US , and 8.2% of Virginians describe themselves as multiracial . More recent immigration since the late 20th century has resulted in new communities of Hispanics and Asians. As of 2020 , 10.5% of Virginia's total population describe themselves as Hispanic or Latino , and 8.8% as Asian . The state's Hispanic population rose by 92% from 2000 to 2010, with two-thirds of Hispanics in

8008-421: The Blue Ridge Railroad, and under his leadership and direction, the railroad began construction over the Blue Ridge using a series of four tunnels. Meanwhile, the Louisa Railroad had reached the Rivanna River near Charlottesville by 1850 and by 1852 had reached Mechums River , near the eastern end of the Blue Ridge Railroad. Operation of the Louisa Railroad was initially handled by the RF&P, beginning with

8151-403: The Brooksville Tunnel and a third 3 ⁄ 4 -mile-long (1.2 km) around Robertson's hollow were also constructed. The temporary tracks successfully joined the railroad and by eliminating the extra cost and effort of removing freight and passengers from trains for transport over the mountains, facilitated further growth and expansion westward. Construction continued from Staunton through

8294-399: The Census Bureau recognizes several hundred unincorporated communities . Over three million people, 35% of Virginians, live in the twenty jurisdictions collectively defined as Northern Virginia , part of the larger Washington metropolitan area and the Northeast megalopolis . Fairfax County , with more than 1.1   million residents, is Virginia's most populous jurisdiction, and has

8437-456: The Chesapeake and Ohio in 1868, another railroad between Fredericksburg and Orange used the name "Virginia Central." The Potomac, Fredericksburg & Piedmont Railroad Company (PF&P) operated 38 miles (61 km) of 3-foot (910 mm) gauge railroad between Fredericksburg (with a connection to the RF&P Railroad ) and Orange (with a connection to the Orange & Alexandria Railroad ). It operated as narrow gauge until 1926, when

8580-469: The Civil War, the Commonwealth was deeply in debt, and in the late 1870s redirected money from public schools to pay bondholders. The Readjuster Party formed in 1877 and won legislative power in 1879 by uniting Black and white Virginians behind a shared opposition to debt payments and the perceived plantation elites . The Readjusters focused on building up schools, like Virginia Tech and Virginia State , and successfully forced West Virginia to share in

8723-577: The Great Dismal and Nottoway swamps. Other common trees include red spruce, Atlantic white cedar , tulip-poplar , and the flowering dogwood , the state tree and flower . Plants like milkweed , dandelions, daisies, ferns, and Virginia creeper , which is featured on the state flag , are also common. The Thompson Wildlife Area in Fauquier is known for having one of the largest populations of trillium wildflowers in North America. White-tailed deer , one of 75 mammal species found in Virginia, rebounded from an estimated population of as few as 25,000 in

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8866-436: The Iroquois, and other allied tribes on both sides. A militia from several British colonies, called the Virginia Regiment , was led by Major George Washington , himself one of the investors in the Ohio Company. In the decade following the French and Indian War , the British Parliament passed new taxes which were deeply unpopular in the colonies, and in the House of Burgesses ; opposition to taxation without representation

9009-404: The Kentucky border and is one of only two inter-state parks in the United States. Sustainable logging is allowed in 26 state forests managed by the Virginia Department of Forestry totaling 71,972 acres (291.3 km ), as is hunting in 44 Wildlife Management Areas run by the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources covering over 205,000 acres (829.6 km ). The Chesapeake Bay is not

9152-456: The Louisa Railroad and had held various positions over the course of the Virginia Central's and C&O's history. Huntington was also aware of the potential to ship eastbound coal from West Virginia's untapped natural resources with the completion of the new railroad. His agents began acquiring property in Warwick County in eastern Virginia. In the 1880s, he oversaw the extension of the C&O's new Peninsula Subdivision , which extended from

9295-420: The Louisa Railroad began in October 1836, reaching the Louisa courthouse by 1839, and by 1840 had reached Gordonsville . The railroad had been planned by its original charter to build across the Blue Ridge Mountains to Harrisonburg , but in 1839, the Commonwealth requested a survey to be conducted to determine a feasible route to Staunton by way of Charlottesville . Ultimately, this route, which passed over

9438-459: The May 23 referendum, armed pro-Confederate groups prevented the casting and counting of votes from areas that opposed secession. Representatives from 27 of these northwestern counties instead began the Wheeling Convention , which organized a government loyal to the Union and led to the separation of West Virginia as a new state. The armies of the Union and Confederacy first met on July 21, 1861, in Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia ,

9581-408: The Ohio River to aid in the construction of the line from the western side. The final spike ceremony for the 428-mile (689 km) long line from Richmond to the Ohio River was held on January 29, 1873, at Hawk's Nest railroad bridge in the New River Valley , near the town of Ansted in Fayette County, West Virginia . The last spike was driven by C.R. Mason, who had also driven the first spike of

9724-495: The Ohio Valley region has helped cut the amount of particulate matter in Virginia's air in half. Current plans call for 30% of the Commonwealth's electricity to be renewable by 2030 and for all to be carbon-free by 2050. Forests cover 62% of Virginia as of 2021 , of which 80% is considered hardwood forest, meaning that trees are primarily deciduous and broad-leaved . The other 20% is pine, with loblolly and shortleaf pine dominating much of central and eastern Virginia. In

9867-537: The Peninsula Subdivision through Williamsburg to service the coal piers in the East End of Newport News . After the Chesapeake and Ohio was consolidated with several other large railroads in the 1980s to form CSX Transportation , the line built by the Virginia Central from Staunton to Clifton Forge was considered for abandonment. CSX, however, decided to keep the line in order to route empty coal trains westward, which, although intended for times of excess traffic, has become common practice. In addition to CSX, portions of

10010-547: The Rivanna River by May. Temporary overland stage and wagon routes were set up to bypass inoperable sections of the railroad as repairs were made and provided for the transportation of goods and passengers. By the end of July, trains were able to run to the western terminus of Jackson's River Station. The Virginia Central's rolling stock had suffered throughout the Civil War, and the operable equipment had dwindled to an amount insufficient to provide for demand. To help solve this issue, four locomotives and forty cars were rented from

10153-597: The U.S. Census Bureau found that only 0.5% of Virginians were exclusively American Indian or Alaska Native , though 2.1% were in some combination with other ethnicities. The state government has extended recognition to eleven tribes. Seven tribes also have federal recognition. The Pamunkey and Mattaponi have reservations on tributaries of the York River in the Tidewater region . [REDACTED] American Community Survey five-year estimate According to U.S. Census data as of 2022 on Virginia residents aged five and older, 83% (6,805,548) speak English at home as

10296-552: The U.S. are under Coles Hill, Virginia . Despite a challenge that reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice , the state has banned its mining since 1982 due to environmental and public health concerns. Virginia has a humid subtropical climate that transitions to humid continental west of the Blue Ridge Mountains . Seasonal extremes vary from average lows of 25 °F (−4 °C) in January to average highs of 86 °F (30 °C) in July. The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf Stream have

10439-478: The United States as of 2020 . El Salvador is the most common foreign country of birth, with India , Mexico , South Korea , the Philippines , and Vietnam as other common birthplaces. The state's most populous racial group, non-Hispanic whites , has declined as a proportion of the population from 76% in 1990 to 58.6% in 2020. Immigrants from Britain and Ireland settled throughout the Commonwealth during

10582-489: The United States. Virginia has a total area of 42,774.2 square miles (110,784.7 km ), including 3,180.13 square miles (8,236.5 km ) of water, making it the 35th- largest state by area. It is bordered by Maryland and Washington, D.C. to the northeast; by the Atlantic Ocean to the east; by North Carolina to the south; by Tennessee to the southwest; by Kentucky to the west; and by West Virginia to

10725-466: The Virginia Central and the C&;O paid around $ 900,000 ($ 21,685,263.16 today) to the Commonwealth, including both the purchase price and previous fees for use, which was significantly less than the Commonwealth's expenditure of $ 1,694,870.85 ($ 40,837,467.11 today) in building the line. Construction of the old Covington and Ohio line began from Huntington, West Virginia on the western end and Covington on

10868-402: The Virginia Central as possible along the way. From Charlottesville, the combined force would advance towards Richmond from the west. Robert E. Lee responded by sending cavalry under the command of Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee , who would meet Sheridan on June 11 at Trevilian Station on the Virginia Central's line. Confederate forces succeeded in pushing Sheridan back, who at 10:00 pm of

11011-422: The Virginia Central's line carried 134,883 passengers throughout the year, and hauled 64,177 tons of freight. The road connected Richmond to a point about 10 miles (16 km) east of Covington, where the proposed Covington and Ohio Railroad would have started, a distance of approximately 195 miles (314 km). In February 1853, the Commonwealth of Virginia had chartered the Covington and Ohio Railroad to extend

11154-530: The Virginia General Assembly proposed a new surveying commission in 1871. Representatives from Tennessee preferred to keep the less-straight 1803 line, and in 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for them against Virginia . One result is how the city of Bristol is divided in two between the states. The Chesapeake Bay separates the contiguous portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginia's Eastern Shore . The bay

11297-692: The area held by the Seneca and their larger Iroquois Nation , and in 1748, a group of wealthy speculators, backed by the British monarchy, formed the Ohio Company to start English settlement and trade in the Ohio Country west of the Appalachian Mountains . France, which claimed this area as part of New France , viewed this as a threat, and in 1754 the French and Indian War engulfed England, France,

11440-714: The army and revolutionary militias. Virginia was the first colony to ratify the Articles of Confederation in December 1777. In April 1780, the capital was moved to Richmond at the urging of Governor Thomas Jefferson, who feared that Williamsburg's coastal location would make it vulnerable to British attack. British forces landed around Portsmouth in October 1780, and soldiers under Benedict Arnold raided Richmond in January 1781. The British army had over seven thousand soldiers and twenty-five warships stationed in Virginia at

11583-547: The bay as of 2024 . There are 34 native species of crayfish, like the Big Sandy . Amphibians found in Virginia include the Cumberland Plateau salamander and Eastern hellbender , while the northern watersnake is the most common of the 32 snake species. As of 2019 , roughly 16.2% of land in the Commonwealth is protected by federal, state, and local governments and non-profits. Federal lands account for

11726-566: The beginning of 1781, but General Charles Cornwallis and his superiors were indecisive, and maneuvers by the three thousand soldiers under the Marquis de Lafayette and twenty-nine allied French warships together managed to confine the British to a swampy area of the Virginia Peninsula in September. Around sixteen thousand soldiers under George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau quickly converged there and defeated Cornwallis in

11869-491: The beginning of the war, the Virginia Central contracted with the Confederate States Postal Service , as it had done with the U.S. Postal Service before the war, to carry mail over its line. This service, along with passenger and general goods transport, became less reliable as the transport of military goods and troops took precedence. As the war progressed, the railroad continually fell into

12012-528: The colonial period, when roughly three-fourths of immigrants came as indentured servants . The Appalachian mountains and Shenandoah Valley have many settlements that were populated by German and Scotch-Irish immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries, often following the Great Wagon Road . Over ten percent of Virginians have German ancestry as of 2020 . The largest minority group in Virginia are Blacks and African Americans, about one-fifth of

12155-633: The colonial period. Only three other independent cities exist elsewhere in the US. The differences between counties and cities in Virginia are small and have to do with how each assess new taxes, whether a referendum is necessary to issue bonds, and with the application of Dillon's Rule , which limits the authority of cities and counties to countermand acts expressly allowed by the General Assembly . Counties can also have incorporated towns , and while there are no further administrative subdivisions ,

12298-557: The colony's start, residents agitated for greater local control, and in 1619, certain male colonists began electing representatives to an assembly, later called the House of Burgesses , that negotiated issues with the governing council appointed by the London Company. Unhappy with this arrangement, the monarchy revoked the company's charter and began directly naming governors and Council members in 1624. In 1635, colonists arrested

12441-618: The colony. Virginians fought for the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in the American Revolution , and helped establish the new national government. During the American Civil War , the state government in Richmond joined the Confederacy , while many northwestern counties remained loyal to the Union , which led to the separation of West Virginia in 1863. Although the state was under one-party rule for nearly

12584-517: The concentration of independent cities in the Tidewater region is that several rural counties there re-incorporated as cities or consolidated with existing cities to try to hold on to their new suburban neighborhoods that started booming in the 1950s , since cities like Norfolk and Portsmouth were able to annex land from adjoining counties until a moratorium in 1987. Others, like Poquoson , became cities to try to preserve racial segregation during

12727-602: The damage was soon repaired and the line was generally kept in good use. May 1863 saw another raid against the line, during which the Louisa Court House was attacked and the Hanover depot burned. During Ulysses S. Grant 's Overland Campaign of 1864, Phillip Sheridan was ordered, along with nearly 8,000 men, to proceed westward to join forces with David Hunter in Charlottesville, destroying as much of

12870-409: The desegregation era of the 1970s. The 2020 census found the state resident population was 8,631,393, a 7.9% increase since the 2010 census . Another 23,149 Virginians live overseas, giving the state a total population of 8,654,542. Virginia has the fourth-largest overseas population of U.S. states due to its federal employees and military personnel. The fertility rate in Virginia as of 2020

13013-502: The eastern and western divisions of the railroad at this time divided by the unfinished Blue Ridge Railroad, a temporary track over Rockfish Gap was proposed by the railroad's chief engineer, Charles Ellet, Jr. , and by 1854 had been constructed and was in use. Built over and around the under construction Blue Ridge Tunnel, this 4.38-mile-long (7.05 km) track, called the Mountain Track, included steep grades (maximum 5.6% with

13156-541: The eastern edge is the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, where over 1.7   million reside across six counties and nine cities, including the Commonwealth's three most populous independent cities: Virginia Beach , Chesapeake , and Norfolk . Neighboring Suffolk , which includes a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp , is the largest city by area at 429.1 square miles (1,111 km ). One reason for

13299-473: The eastern end, and progressed towards the middle. By July 1869, construction of the line westward had reached White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia , and with the use of three temporary tracks around two unfinished tunnels and an embankment, the entire line of 227 miles (365 km) from Richmond to White Sulphur Springs could be traveled. In August 1871, a locomotive named the Greenbrier was floated down

13442-500: The end of slavery across the country. The seizure of Fort Sumter by Confederate forces on April 14, 1861, prompted Lincoln to call for a federal army of 75,000 men from state militias . The Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 voted on April 17 to secede on the condition it was approved in a referendum the next month. The convention voted to join the Confederacy, which named Richmond its capital on May 20. During

13585-551: The extension of the Louisa Railroad easterly through Hanover and Henrico Counties to reach Richmond . This act was protested by the RF&;P for violating the earlier decree of the Assembly against a parallel competitor. The RF&P's claim was originally overturned by a Virginia State Court , which ruled that the Assembly retained the right to authorize construction of other railroads between Richmond and Fredericksburg, and that

13728-403: The first of several invasions into Union territory. During the next three years of war, more battles were fought in Virginia than anywhere else, including the battles of Fredericksburg , Chancellorsville , Spotsylvania , and the concluding Battle of Appomattox Court House , where Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865. Virginia was formally restored to the United States in 1870, due to the work of

13871-447: The first operation of a train over Louisa Railroad tracks on December 20, 1837. This condition continued until June 1847, when the Louisa Railroad took over operations. The eastern terminus of the Louisa Railroad was originally at Hanover Junction (now known as Doswell) with the RF&P Railroad. The charter of that line protected it from construction of a parallel competitor, but an act by the Virginia General Assembly in 1848 authorized

14014-407: The government at a price of $ 20 and $ 2 ($ 398.09 and $ 39.81 today) each per day respectively. The Beaverdam Depot was rebuilt in 1866. In November 1865, an election for a new president of the company was held, and former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham was elected over longtime president Edmund Fontaine by 364 votes. In recognition of Fontaine's dedication and service to the railroad,

14157-578: The land on Virginia's islands, which include Tangier Island in the bay and Chincoteague , one of 23 barrier islands on the Atlantic coast. The Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line . It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay. The Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock -based foothills east of the mountains. The region, known for its heavy clay soil, includes

14300-466: The largest bloc in the House of Representatives . Together with the Virginia dynasty of presidents, this gave the Commonwealth national importance. Virginia is called the "Mother of States" because of its role in being carved into states such as Kentucky , and for the numbers of American pioneers born in Virginia. Between 1790 and 1860, the number of slaves in Virginia rose from around 290 thousand to over 490 thousand, roughly one-third of

14443-409: The last of the track was laid and placed in operation. Reaching Covington enabled connection with the Covington and Ohio railroad, which at that time was still under construction, and provided for the future merging of the two companies as specified by an act of the Virginia General Assembly passed on March 1, 1867. On August 31, 1868, the Virginia Central was merged with the Covington and Ohio to form

14586-469: The late Paleozoic Alleghenian orogeny (300 to 330 million years ago). Rockfish Gap lies astride a north-northwest trending fracture zone; some fractures are intruded by diabase dikes of Jurassic age. The broken bedrock along this fracture zone is more easily eroded than unfractured bedrock - likely the reason for the formation of the gap at this location. In the 18th century, early trails used by Native Americans were gradually expanded to accommodate

14729-440: The late afternoon and evenings between April and September. These months are also the most common for tornadoes , eight of which touched down in the Commonwealth in 2023. Hurricanes and tropical storms can occur from August to October. The deadliest natural disaster in Virginia was Hurricane Camille , which killed over 150 people in 1969 mainly in inland Nelson County . Between December and March, cold-air damming caused by

14872-664: The line completed by the Virginia Central westward across the Alleghany Mountains to the Ohio River . This company began work in 1855 and completed important grading work on the Alleghany grade, including the construction of numerous tunnels, and, to a lesser extent, in the areas around Charleston and the Kanawha River . However, as the American Civil War began in 1861, westward expansion came to

15015-787: The line was standard gauged and the name changed to the Virginia Central Railway. In 1937, the entire line was abandoned except for a 1 mile (1.6 km) segment in Fredericksburg which lasted until 1984. Virginia Virginia , officially the Commonwealth of Virginia , is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the Atlantic Coast and

15158-873: The majority, with thirty National Park Service units, such as Great Falls Park and the Appalachian Trail , and one national park, Shenandoah . Almost forty percent of Shenandoah's total 199,173 acres (806 km ) area has been designated as wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System . The U.S. Forest Service administers the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests , which cover more than 1.6 million acres (6,500 km ) within Virginia's mountains, and continue into West Virginia and Kentucky . The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge also extends into North Carolina, as does

15301-620: The middle of the 20th century, are the focus of conservation efforts in the state and a reintroduction program in Shenandoah National Park . Virginia has 226 species of freshwater fish from 25 families, a diversity attributable to the area's varied and humid climate, topography, interconnected river system, and lack of Pleistocene glaciers . Common examples on the Cumberland Plateau and higher-elevation regions include Eastern blacknose dace , sculpin , smallmouth bass , redhorse sucker , Kanawha darter , and brook trout ,

15444-425: The mountains at Rockfish Gap , was chosen as a better alternative than the original plan to cross at Swift Run Gap to the north. In 1847, the charter was modified by the Assembly to provide for the railroad's construction to the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, and in 1849, the Blue Ridge Railroad was chartered to cross the mountains at Rockfish Gap to Waynesboro . Claudius Crozet was appointed Chief Engineer of

15587-593: The new Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railroad (reorganized as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1878), and Wickham was elected as president. Wickham realized the need to find adequate financing to resume the westward work through the challenging mountainous terrain, as the Virginia Board of Public Works was no longer in a position to help as it had in the past. After failing in the impoverished southern states and with British investors, Wickham found new capital and financing by recruiting Collis P. Huntington , one of

15730-474: The north and drifted an additional 3.5 miles by the border's westernmost point . After Tennessee joined the U.S. in 1796, new surveyors worked in 1802 and 1803 to reset their border with Virginia as a line from the summit of White Top Mountain to the top of Tri-State Peak in the Cumberland Mountains . However, deviations in that border were identified when it was re-marked in 1856, and

15873-466: The northwest. That Virginia's boundary with Maryland and Washington, D.C. only extends to the low-water mark of the south shore of the Potomac River has been an issue for water rights over the years. . Virginia's southern border was defined in 1665 as 36°30' north latitude . Surveyors marking the border with North Carolina in the 18th century however started about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to

16016-603: The old Virginia Central line are in use by Amtrak 's Cardinal from Gordonsville to Clifton Forge, and the Buckingham Branch Railroad , a Virginia-based short-line railroad that leases the line from CSX. The line will also be used for the Amtrak Commonwealth Corridor connecting Newport News to Richmond, Charlottesville, Roanoke, and Lynchburg starting mid-late 2020s. Many years after the original Virginia Central became part of

16159-474: The original charter of the RF&P only applied to the transportation of passengers. The decision of the court was appealed and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Company v. Louisa Railroad Company , which ruled in favor of the Louisa Railroad, upholding the state court's decision. The first president of the Louisa Railroad was Frederick Overton Harris,

16302-452: The original charter, was to connect with the RF&P near Taylorsville, at what would become Hanover Junction , and extend westward, passing the Louisa courthouse, to Orange County at the base of the Southwest Mountains . The Virginia Board of Public Works owned two-fifths of the total $ 300,000 ($ 10,987,200 today) stock sold to finance the railroad's initial construction. Construction of

16445-417: The path of the river. The addition of the "James River Line" allowed the C&O to avoid the heavier grades of the old Virginia Central's line to the north and became the principal artery of eastbound coal transportation down to the present day, with the earlier Virginia Central line used for westbound empty hoppers. From the convergence of the lines in Richmond, both eastbound and westbound coal trains utilized

16588-518: The population. Virginia was a major destination of the Atlantic slave trade . The Igbo ethnic group of what is now southern Nigeria were the largest African group among slaves in Virginia. Blacks in Virginia also have more European ancestry than those in other southern states, and DNA analysis shows many have asymmetrical male and female ancestry from before the Civil War, evidence of European fathers and African or Native American mothers. Though

16731-620: The pre-war debt. But in 1883, they were divided by a proposed repeal of anti-miscegenation laws , and days before that year's election, a riot in Danville , involving armed policemen, left four Black men and one white man dead. These events motivated a push by white supremacists to seize political power through voter suppression , and segregationists in the Democratic Party won the legislature that year and maintained control for decades. They passed Jim Crow laws that established

16874-518: The presence of Confederate monuments in Virginia have also led to large demonstrations, including in August 2017, when a white supremacist drove his car into protesters , killing one, and in June 2020, when protests that were part of the larger Black Lives Matter movement brought about the removal of Confederate statues . Virginia is located in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of

17017-456: The railroad faced significant action against it during the war. Although the war left the railroad with only a fraction of its line left operable, the railroad was running over its entire pre-war length by July 1865. After the war, both longtime president Edmund Fontaine and former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham served as president of the Virginia Central and oversaw its expansion towards Covington. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad

17160-469: The rest are mostly winter residents or transients . Water birds include sandpipers, wood ducks, and Virginia rail , while common inland examples include warblers, woodpeckers, and cardinals, the state bird . Birds of prey include osprey, broad-winged hawks , and barred owls . There are no endemic bird species. Audubon recognizes 21 Important Bird Areas in the state. Peregrine falcons , whose numbers dramatically declined due to DDT poisoning in

17303-618: The roadway on the bridge over the gap is actually part of the Blue Ridge Parkway). The Appalachian Trail also passes through the gap. Rockfish Gap is underlain by greenstones of the Catoctin Formation, a late Neoproterozoic geologic unit exposed throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania. Catoctin greenstones were originally erupted as basaltic lava flows 550 to 565 million years ago and later metamorphosed and deformed during

17446-594: The site of the new University of Virginia . In 1854, the German landscape artist, Edward Beyer , painted a landscape of Rockfish Gap and the Mountain House. State Chief Engineer Claudius Crozet of the Virginia Board of Public Works oversaw construction of the railroad tunnel under Rockfish Gap in the 1850s as part of the state-owned Blue Ridge Railroad . This tunnel was later used by Confederate General Stonewall Jackson to move his foot cavalry during

17589-468: The so-called " Big Four ", a group of businessmen who had recently completed the western portion of the transcontinental railroad . Under Huntington's leadership, and with millions in new financing from New York City , westward construction resumed in 1868. Having long paid tolls for the use of the state-owned Blue Ridge Railroad, the C&O arranged to purchase the line from the Commonwealth of Virginia and assumed full ownership on April 1, 1870. In all,

17732-524: The southwest and Mexico by the end of the period. Palisaded towns began to be built around 1200. The native population in the current boundaries of Virginia reached around 50,000 in the 1500s. Large groups in the area at that time included the Algonquian in the Tidewater region , which they referred to as Tsenacommacah , the Iroquoian -speaking Nottoway and Meherrin to the north and south, and

17875-476: The state government manages most local roads. It is also the only state where governors are prohibited from serving consecutive terms. Nomadic hunters are estimated to have arrived in Virginia around 17,000 years ago. Evidence from Daugherty's Cave shows it was regularly used as a rock shelter by 9,800 years ago. During the late Woodland period (500–1000 CE ), tribes coalesced, and farming, first of corn and squash, began, with beans and tobacco arriving from

18018-686: The state living in Northern Virginia . Northern Virginia also has a significant population of Vietnamese Americans , whose major wave of immigration followed the Vietnam War . Korean Americans have migrated there more recently, while about 45,000 Filipino Americans have settled in the Hampton Roads area. Tribal membership in Virginia is complicated by the legacy of the state's " pencil genocide " of intentionally categorizing Native Americans and Blacks together, and many tribal members do have African or European ancestry, or both. In 2020,

18161-587: The state population, and the number of slave owners rose to over 50 thousand. Both of these numbers represented the most in the U.S. The boom in Southern cotton production using cotton gins increased the amount of labor needed for harvesting raw cotton , but new federal laws prohibited the importation of slaves. Decades of monoculture tobacco farming had also degraded Virginia's agricultural productivity . Virginia plantations increasingly turned to exporting slaves , which broke up countless families and made

18304-545: The state than moving to it in 2021. This is largely credited to high home prices in Northern Virginia, which are driving residents there to relocate south; Raleigh is their top destination. Aside from Virginia, the top birth state for Virginians is New York , with the Northeast accounting for the largest number of domestic migrants into the state by region. About twelve percent of residents were born outside

18447-414: The stockholders resolved to grant Fontaine and his family free tickets for life. Fontaine was unanimously reelected as president of the company in 1866 and 1867. Since before the Civil War, the section of the line between Jackson's River Station and Covington, a distance of about 10 miles (16 km), had remained incomplete. This section was necessary for further westward expansion, and by July 31, 1867,

18590-432: The tribes, burned Jamestown. Bacon's Rebellion forced the signing of Bacon's Laws , which restored some of the colony's rights and sanctioned both attacks on native tribes and the enslavement of their people. The Treaty of 1677 further reduced the independence of the tribes that signed it, and aided the colony's assimilation of their land in the years that followed. Colonists in the 1700s were pushing westward into

18733-503: The tunnel in use, the temporary track was promptly torn up. At the time of the Blue Ridge Tunnel's completion, it was the longest tunnel in the United States and the first tunnel in the country to be completed without the use of vertical shafts . Although the Virginia Central did not own the Blue Ridge Railroad, it was granted the right to operate it from the Commonwealth of Virginia in return for an annual fee. In 1859,

18876-483: The western and mountainous parts of the Commonwealth, oak and hickory are most common, while lower altitudes are more likely to have small but dense stands of hemlocks and mosses in abundance. Spongy moth infestations in oak trees and the blight in chestnut trees have decreased both of their numbers, leaving more room for hickory and the invasive tree of heaven . In the lowland tidewater and Piedmont , yellow pines tend to dominate, with bald cypress wetland forests in

19019-519: The westward expansion of Virginia colonists. The Three Chopt or Three Notch'd Road had been established in the Colony of Virginia between Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley by the 1740s. Most likely, the road followed an ancient Monacan trail from the village of Orapax (east of Richmond) to the western Shenandoah Valley . This well-planned route required only one major river crossing,

19162-681: The world's largest naval base. Virginia's history begins with several Indigenous groups , including the Powhatan . In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English colony in the New World , leading to Virginia's nickname as the Old Dominion . Slaves from Africa and land from displaced native tribes fueled the growing plantation economy, but also fueled conflicts both inside and outside

19305-482: Was 55.8 per 1,000 females between the ages of 15 and 44, and the median age as of 2021 was the same as the national average of 38.8 years old. The geographic center of population is located northwest of Richmond in Hanover County , as of 2020 . Though still growing naturally as births outnumber deaths, Virginia has had a negative net migration rate since 2013, with 8,995 more people leaving

19448-488: Was busy building westward from the western foot of the mountains, across the Shenandoah Valley to Staunton. In January 1850, the Commonwealth authorized the Louisa Railroad to increase its stock in order to build from Staunton to Covington . On February 2, 1850, the Louisa Railroad, having expanded greatly since its beginnings in Louisa and Hanover counties, was renamed as the Virginia Central Railroad. In order to connect

19591-558: Was done to the eastern section of the railroad. By the end of the war, the railroad operated less than 20 miles (32 km) of track and held only $ 40 ($ 796.17 today) in gold. During the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, the South Anna River bridge was destroyed by Union cavalry and the Virginia Central's line between Hanover and Atlee was torn up. Although this and numerous other raids caused significant damage,

19734-518: Was formed from the drowned river valley of the ancient Susquehanna River . Many of Virginia's rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac , Rappahannock , York , and James , which create three peninsulas in the bay, traditionally referred to as "necks" named Northern Neck , Middle Peninsula , and the Virginia Peninsula from north to south. Sea level rise has eroded

19877-580: Was formed in 1868 from the merger of the Virginia Central Railroad and the Covington and Ohio Railroad , and had expanded westward to the Ohio River by 1873 after new financing from Collis P. Huntington was recruited. The new railroad (reorganized as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1878) expanded eastward in the 1880s via the Peninsula Subdivision to Newport News . The Chesapeake and Ohio operated for over one hundred years until it

20020-759: Was led by Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee , among others. Virginians began to coordinate their actions with other colonies in 1773 and sent delegates to the Continental Congress the following year. After the House of Burgesses was dissolved in 1774 by the royal governor , Virginia's revolutionary leaders continued to govern via the Virginia Conventions . On May 15, 1776, the Convention declared Virginia's independence and adopted George Mason 's Virginia Declaration of Rights , which

20163-477: Was reorganized through merger as CSX Transportation in the 1980s. Today, CSX, Amtrak , and the Buckingham Branch Railroad still use portions of the old Virginia Central line for freight and passenger rail service. The Virginia General Assembly passed on February 18, 1836, an act to incorporate the Louisa Railroad company to construct a rail line extending from the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad (RF&P) westward. The railroad, as specified by

20306-696: Was responsible for building 38 warships for the U.S. Navy between 1907 and 1923. During World War I , German submarines attacked ships outside the port, which was a major site for transportation of soldiers and supplies. After the war, a homecoming parade to honor African-American troops was attacked in July 1919 by the city's police as part of a renewed white-supremacy movement, known as Red Summer . The shipyard continued building warships in World War II , and quadrupled its pre-war labor force to 70,000 by 1943. The Radford Arsenal outside Blacksburg also employed 22,000 workers making explosives, while

20449-687: Was then included in a new constitution that designated Virginia as a commonwealth . Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson , drew upon Mason's work in drafting the national Declaration of Independence . After the American Revolutionary War began, George Washington was selected by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to head the Continental Army , and many Virginians joined

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