Petersburg City County, VA

Settlement & growth (pre-1960)

Long before European settlement, the area that is now Petersburg was inhabited by the Appamattuck, a Virginia Algonquian-speaking tribe, who lived along the Appomattox River. The river was a key trade and travel route, and the Appamattuck maintained a fortified village near what is now the city’s historic district. English colonists from Jamestown began pushing into the region in the 1640s, and by 1675, a trading post called Fort Henry was established at the falls of the Appomattox, near present-day Old Towne Petersburg. The area was originally part of Prince George County, but by the mid-1700s, a small settlement called Petersburg—named after Peter Jones, a local planter—had emerged as a tobacco inspection and shipping point.

During the colonial and early American periods, Petersburg grew as a tobacco market and a manufacturing center for cotton and flour. The city was incorporated in 1784 and quickly became a hub for free Black artisans, merchants, and laborers. By 1830, Petersburg had one of the largest free Black populations in the Upper South, concentrated in neighborhoods like Pocahontas Island and the Gillfield area. These communities were built by skilled tradesmen—blacksmiths, coopers, and boatbuilders—who worked the river and the railroads. The city also attracted Scots-Irish and English merchants, as well as a small number of German and Jewish families who established dry goods stores and banks along Sycamore Street.

The Civil War devastated Petersburg. The city was besieged for nine months in 1864–65, and much of its infrastructure was destroyed. After emancipation, thousands of freedmen and women moved into the city, settling in the wards around Harrison Street and Halifax Street, creating a dense, self-contained Black community with its own churches, schools, and businesses. The post-Reconstruction era saw the rise of Virginia State University (founded in 1882 in nearby Ettrick, just across the river), which became a major anchor for Black educational and professional life. The city’s industrial base—tobacco factories, cotton mills, and railroad yards—drew Black workers from rural Virginia and North Carolina through the early 1900s, while white residents increasingly moved to the western edges of the city, near the Blandford and Walnut Hill neighborhoods.

By the mid-20th century, Petersburg was a majority-Black city, but segregation kept these communities separate. The Great Migration did not pull many Black residents out of Petersburg—instead, the city was a destination for Black migrants from the surrounding counties. White flight accelerated after World War II, as new suburban developments in Chesterfield and Dinwiddie counties drew white families away. The city’s population peaked at around 41,000 in 1960, then began a slow decline as manufacturing jobs left and the tax base eroded.

Modern era (post-1965)

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act had a minimal direct effect on Petersburg, as the city’s foreign-born population remains very low at 2.0%. However, the broader demographic shifts of the post-1965 era reshaped the region indirectly. The most significant change was the acceleration of Black suburbanization and the continued outmigration of white residents. By 2020, the city’s white share had fallen to under 15%, while the Black share remained dominant at nearly 75%. Hispanic residents, now 6.0% of the population, began arriving in the 1990s and 2000s, primarily from Mexico and Central America, drawn by low-cost housing and service-sector jobs. They have concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the city, particularly around the South Crater Road corridor and near the Fort Lee military base (now Fort Gregg-Adams).

East/Southeast Asian communities, at 1.0%, are a small but visible presence, with a handful of Vietnamese and Filipino families connected to the military and to regional healthcare jobs. The Indian subcontinent population is negligible at 0.2%. Domestic migration has been largely outward: Petersburg has lost population steadily since 1960, dropping from 41,000 to 33,365, as younger residents move to Richmond, Hampton Roads, or the Raleigh-Durham area for better job opportunities. The city’s housing stock is old and often in poor condition, and the poverty rate is high, which has discouraged in-migration from other parts of the country. Suburbanization has been a one-way street: the growth has all gone to Chesterfield County to the north and Dinwiddie County to the south, while Petersburg itself has become more isolated and economically distressed.

The closure of major industrial employers—the Brown & Williamson tobacco plant, the city’s textile mills—has left a hole in the local economy. Fort Gregg-Adams (formerly Fort Lee) remains the largest employer, but its workforce is largely commuter-based, with many military and civilian personnel living in Chesterfield or Prince George counties. The city’s identity as a historic Black cultural center persists, anchored by institutions like the Petersburg Public Library, the Siege Museum, and the Virginia State University campus just across the river in Ettrick, but the population is aging and the school-age population is shrinking.