Tri-Cities, Virginia

Chesterfield Highlands Historic District is a national historic district located at Colonial Heights, Virginia. The district encompasses 305 contributing buildings and 1 contributing structure. The district was developed in the early decades of the 20th century as a carefully planned middle-class neighborhood in a gridiron plan. The primarily residential district includes dwellings in a variety of popular late 19th and early 20th century architectural styles. Located in the district are the Highland Methodist Episcopal Church (1920), Immanuel Baptist Church (1932), and Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church (1950).It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

The Violet Bank Historic District encompasses a historic streetcar suburban area of Colonial Heights, Virginia. The area, originally part of the large Violet Bank plantation, was platted and subdivided in the early 20th century, with development restrictions that resulted in a significant uniformity of layout within the subdivisions. Specific restrictions against flat roofs and fencing between yards are still evident in the building constructed in the area, which includes 237 primarily residential buildings on about 50 acres (20 ha) of land. The district includes the original Violet Bank plantation house, now a museum.The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Southpark Mall is a shopping mall serving the Tri-Cities, Virginia area, which itself is part of the much larger Richmond-Petersburg metropolitan area.

Pocahontas Island is a peninsula in Petersburg, Virginia, once on the opposite side of the Appomattox River from Petersburg. Since 1915 a new channel for the river separated it from Chesterfield County and the former channel no longer separates it from the city. Once a warehouse and wharf-filled urban landscape initially platted in 1749, the island was devastated by a 1993 tornado before citizen involvement caused creation of the Pocahontas Island Historic District, which in 2006 achieved listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a historic district because of its significance in African-American history and for its prehistoric indigenous archeological assets. Archeologists found evidence of prehistoric Native American settlement dating from 6500 B.C. The indigenous Appomattoc people inhabited this region and encountered European colonists by the early 18th century, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to work here. In the 19th century, Pocohontas Island became a notable freedom colony. the first predominately free black settlement in the state and, by mid-19th century, one of the largest in the nation (although enslaved people also lived on the island, and some free blacks owned slaves). In 1860 slightly more than half of Petersburg's population was black, and 3,224 or one-third of those people were free; they constituted the largest free black population of the time. During the 20th century, the island's population declined as people moved north in the Great Migration. In 1975 residents secured renewed residential zoning to protect their neighborhoods from industrial development proposed by the city.

Colonial Heights is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,170. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the City of Colonial Heights (along with the City of Petersburg) with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes. Colonial Heights is located in the Tri-Cities area of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge carries U.S. Route 1 and U.S. Route 301 (Jefferson Davis Highway) across the Appomattox River at the Atlantic Seaboard fall line. It joins Colonial Heights and Petersburg, Virginia. Originally constructed for an interurban streetcar service in the early 20th century, it was rebuilt in the 1990s and is toll-free.

Shepherd Stadium is a baseball stadium in Colonial Heights, Virginia which is home to the Tri-City Chili Peppers, a collegiate summer baseball team in the Coastal Plain League. Shepherd Stadium also hosts American Legion Post 284 baseball, the annual Optimist Club Boys' Invitational Baseball Tournament, Colonial Heights High School baseball, and city Rec and Parks youth baseball and softball programs. The stadium was built in 1948 and named for Mayor Fred R. Shepherd in 1951. A five-year renovation project was concluded in 2018.

Petersburg Union Station is a former train station in Petersburg, Virginia, United States. It was built in 1909–1910 for the Norfolk and Western Railway, and was later used by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Amtrak.

Ellerslie is an historic home located at Colonial Heights, Virginia. It is a large 2+1⁄2-story, hip-roofed, Italian Villa style dwelling with a two-story rear service wing connected by an arcade. It features a three-story tower with a hipped roof and a full-width front porch. In 1839, Scottish born Petersburg tobacco magnate David Dunlop and his wife, Anna Mercer Minge, a niece of U.S. President William Henry Harrison, acquired the 200 acre Ellerslie tract along Swift Creek near Petersburg, along the new rail line of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad Company in Chesterfield County. Dunlop planted tobacco there, eventually more than doubled his land holdings, and constructed Ellerslie, a large plantation house that boasted a mosaic floor and an inner dome with frescoes. On 22 June 1856 Ellerslie was destroyed by fire. Dunlop engaged the Irish architect Robert Young to design a villa-style mansion to replace the first house. Young, a native of Belfast designed Ellerslie in 1856 as a country house for the wealthy industrialist whose primary residence was in Petersburg. The house featured a flat roof with turrets and a towers and a castellated parapet. The home was elegantly furnished and set amid romantically landscaped grounds. In 1864, during the American Civil War, Ellerslie stood in the middle of the Confederate line of defense along Swift Creek. On May 9–10, Confederate Gens. Johnson Hagood and Bushrod Johnson, with 4,200 men, contested the advance towards Petersburg of a much larger Federal force, composed of elements of General Benjamin Butler's Army of the James. During the fighting on May 9, a Confederate battery near the house dueled with Federal gunners across the creek at Arrowfield Farm. In addition to being hit by small arms fire, a cannonball struck the house and remained embedded in the wall until the house was remodeled in 1910. At noon on May 9, the 63rd Tennessee Infantry occupied hastily dug rifle pits around the mansion as part of the Confederate reserve. When Union skirmishers advanced to a fence line about 600 yards from Ellerslie, two Tennessee companies pushed them back. During the night, the Confederates drove a Federal gun from the bank of Swift Creek. The Federals retreated to their camps at Point of Rocks the next morning. Federal operations then shifted toward Richmond and culminated in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff on May 16. Dunlop continued to reside at Ellerslie during the conflict and died, following a stroke, on May 25, 1864, leaving an estate including his tobacco factory, land and slaves valued at more than $652,000 (equal to over $10 million in 2019). He was buried in Blandford Cemetery, in Petersburg. Dunlop's fine townhouse in Petersburg was severely damaged during the Siege of Petersburg that began shortly after his death. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard established his headquarters at Ellerslie and kept them there intermittently through June. On September 2, Hagood's South Carolina brigade established a rest camp at Ellerslie and remained here until September 28. On the night of April 2, 1865, with the fall of Petersburg imminent, fires illuminated Ellerslie and explosions rocked the house as commissary supplies and munitions were burned at Dunlop's Station nearby on the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad to prevent them from falling into the hands of Federal forces as Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and the Confederate defenders abandoned Richmond and fled south. Several civilians were killed in the resulting conflagration.In 1910 Dunlop's grandson, David Dunlop III, engaged the Richmond architectural firm of Carneal and Johnston to extensively remodel the Ellerslie mansion, in a fanciful version of the Bungaloid style that was then popular, retaining the house's basic structure and tower but replacing the original flat roof and castellated parapet with a hipped roof and dormers. The interior of the house was completely remodeled; none of the original woodwork or interior decoration was retained. The Bungaloid feeling of the exterior was carried into the stair hall. It features a finely crafted exposed joist ceiling, with tongue-and-grooved work between the joists. The rich, dark-wood stair was given square-tapered newells and a balustrade containing mogul-type arches. The reception rooms were restyled with a combination of Louis XVI and Georgian motifs. Although David Dunlop, III, sold the tobacco business to the recently established British-American Tobacco Company in 1911, the estate remained in the Dunlop family through the mid 20th century and was a dairy farm. Its large dairy barn was a local landmark for decades. The portion of Chesterfield County where Ellerslie stands became the City of Colonial Heights in 1948. The Ellerslie barn was demolished in the early 1990s and the surrounding farmland has since been developed as a shopping center. Ellerslie was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The Oak Hill is a historic plantation house located at Colonial Heights, Virginia. It was built in 1825–1826, and is a one-story, frame dwelling with Greek Revival style interior decorative details. It originally had an "H" shape, but was subsequently expanded with several additions. It features a distinctive elongated octagonal wing at the west end, inspired by nearby Violet Bank.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The Battle of Blandford (or Blanford), also called the Battle of Petersburg, took place near Petersburg, Virginia on 25 April 1781, late in the American War of Independence. Roughly 2,300 British regulars under the command of Brigadier General William Phillips defeated about 1,000 militia under Major General Baron von Steuben. The introduction of a British troop presence led by turncoat general Benedict Arnold into Virginia in early 1781 prompted an increase in militia activity to counter the British force. The militia were, however, poorly trained and equipped, and were unable to prevent Arnold from moving freely. Arnold was reinforced in March 1781 by additional troops led by General Phillips, who targeted Petersburg in a raiding expedition. Militia forces led by von Steuben and Peter Muhlenberg decided to make a stand at Blandford, then a separate community. When the battle was joined, the outnumbered militia provided remarkably stiff resistance to the British advance, and executed a disciplined retreat across the Appomattox River, avoiding a flanking attempt led by John Graves Simcoe. They eventually retreated to Richmond, where they joined forces with Continental Army troops led by the Marquis de Lafayette. Philips and Arnold continued to launch raids, and eventually joined forces with Charles Cornwallis's army from North Carolina.

City Market, also known as Farmers Market, is an historic public market located at 9 East Old Street in Petersburg, Virginia. It was built in 1878–1879 through a land given in trust by merchant Robert Balling. The City Market is an octagonal brick building. It measures 93 feet in diameter and is surrounded by a large metal canopy supported on elaborate iron brackets. The market’s high-rafted interior was originally where perishables were sold, whereas the outside stalls were for produce.It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. It is located in the Petersburg Old Town Historic District.