Qualla: Colonial Heights, Virginia

Colonial Heights, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. The name comes from a moment of recognition. In May 1781, a British sentry standing on the Petersburg side of the Appomattox River squinted across the water, saw Continental artillery being wheeled into position on the bluff opposite, and reportedly shouted, "Look! There are the Colonials, up on the Heights!" The bluff held the high ground that controlled the river crossing, and that fact has organized this place ever since: a Powhatan town watched the falls, English colonists built a fort beside them, Lafayette dragged cannon up the same slope, and Robert E. Lee made his headquarters here while the Union army ground at Petersburg below.

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colonial Heights, Virginia: Conjurer's Neck

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before any English boot touched it, the bluff above the Appomattox falls belonged to the Appamattuck people. Their principal town and its leaders, the weroance Coquonasum and his sister Oppussoquionuske, appear on Captain John Smith's 1607 map. Just downstream, Swift Creek e...

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colonial Heights, Virginia: Lafayette on the Bluff

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. The slope's military value announced itself in May 1781. The Marquis de Lafayette, twenty-three years old and commanding Continental troops in Virginia, moved south from Richmond and positioned artillery on the heights overlooking Petersburg, where British forces under Major Gene...

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0

Colonial Heights, Virginia: Lee at Violet Bank

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Corvokarasu at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Eighty-three years later, the same high ground served a different general. From June through September 1864, Robert E. Lee made his headquarters at Violet Bank, the Federal-style house just upstream of where Lafayette had positioned his guns. From the lawn, Lee could watch the sm...

Image: Corvokarasu at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Colonial Heights, Virginia: Becoming a City

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Kalasnik from Charlotte, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The bluff did not become Colonial Heights, the place name, until a 1906 real estate subdivision. The town was incorporated in 1926 as part of Chesterfield County, became an independent city in 1948 under Virginia's unusual constitutional system, and grew rapidly through the 1960s...

Image: Mike Kalasnik from Charlotte, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Colonial Heights, Virginia: The August Tornado

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. On August 6, 1993, a tornado that had peaked at F4 intensity in Petersburg crossed the Appomattox River and cut across Colonial Heights at F3 strength, with winds up to 175 mph. It collapsed the roof of a Walmart on Temple Avenue, killing three people inside. A fourth died in nea...

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0