Hopewell City County, VA

Settlement & growth (pre-1960)

Before European settlement, the area now known as Hopewell was part of the territory of the Appomattoc, a Virginia Algonquian-speaking tribe. English colonists from Jamestown first encountered the Appomattoc in the early 1600s, and the tribe was largely decimated by disease and conflict by the end of the century. The land was incorporated into the vast tobacco plantations of the Virginia Tidewater, with few permanent settlements until the 20th century.

The modern city of Hopewell was literally created by industry. In 1914, the E.I. du Pont de Nemours Company built a massive dynamite plant on the site, drawing thousands of workers from across the rural South and Appalachia. This was the city’s founding moment. The workforce was overwhelmingly White and native-born, with many coming from the impoverished farms of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The city was officially incorporated in 1916, and its population exploded to over 10,000 by 1920. During World War II, the city’s chemical plants—now operated by Allied Chemical and Firestone—again boomed, attracting a second wave of White and Black migrants from the rural South. The Black population, which had been a small minority, grew significantly during this period as African Americans moved to Hopewell for industrial jobs, settling primarily in the areas around Arlington Road and the downtown core. By 1950, Hopewell’s population had reached 10,200, with a Black share of roughly 25%.

Unlike many Virginia cities, Hopewell had almost no antebellum history or 19th-century immigration from Europe. Its population was built entirely by 20th-century domestic migration, driven by the explosive demand for munitions and chemicals. The city’s layout—a dense grid of small houses and apartments near the plants—reflected its purpose as a company town.

Modern era (post-1965)

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act had a minimal direct impact on Hopewell, as the city’s foreign-born population remains very low at 1.6%. The small Asian community (1.1%) is primarily of East and Southeast Asian origin, with a handful of Vietnamese and Filipino families who arrived as refugees or through family reunification in the 1980s and 1990s. There is no Indian-subcontinent population (0.0%) and no significant Arab community. The Hispanic population, now 8.6%, began growing in the 1990s and 2000s, driven by Mexican and Central American immigrants who came for work in the region’s poultry processing plants and construction industry. These newer residents are dispersed throughout the city, with no single concentrated ethnic enclave, though a small cluster of Hispanic-owned businesses has emerged along East Broadway Avenue.

The most significant demographic shift since 1965 has been the dramatic change in the city’s racial composition. In 1970, Hopewell was roughly 70% White and 30% Black. By 2020, the White share had fallen to 41.6%, while the Black share rose to 41.2%. This shift was driven by two forces: White flight to surrounding Chesterfield and Prince George counties, and continued in-migration of Black families from the rural South and the Richmond area. The city’s population peaked at 23,397 in 1970 and has since declined slightly, as deindustrialization and the loss of manufacturing jobs led to out-migration. The city’s college-educated share is just 12.5%, well below state and national averages, reflecting the working-class character of the population.