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.
Pocahontas Island welcome sign
Petersburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,458 with a majority black American. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes. The city is 21 miles (34 km) south of the commonwealth (state) capital city of Richmond.
Downtown Petersburg
Intersection of Sycamore and Bollingbrook
Petersburg, Va., from Duns Hill, c. 1880
The Civil War headquarters staff of the Army of the Potomac's 5th Corps at the home of Col. Isaac E. Avery near Petersburg, photographed by Matthew Brady in June 1864; the following month, on July 3, Avery was killed in the Battle of Gettysburg.
