Qualla: Pittsylvania County, Virginia

Pittsylvania County, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Virginia Department of Education, CC BY 2.0. In 1767, a Virginia colonial legislature carved a new county out of Halifax County's western edge and gave it the unlikely name Pittsylvania — Sylvania for the woods, Pitt for William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, the British Prime Minister who had spent his career arguing against the harshest colonial policies. The British colonies named places after Pitt regularly in those years. They were grateful for his Stamp Act opposition. Within a decade of Pittsylvania's founding, those same colonies would be at war with Britain, and Pittsylvania's western half would be split off in 1777 to form Henry County, named for Patrick Henry, the orator whose voice helped start the revolution that the original Pittsylvania's namesake had tried to prevent.

Image: Virginia Department of Education | CC BY 2.0

Pittsylvania County, Virginia: Virginia's Biggest County

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pittsylvania covers 978 square miles — 969 of land and 9 of water — making it the largest county in Virginia by land area and the second-largest by total area. The county wraps around the independent city of Danville on three sides; Danville sits at its southern border with North...

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pittsylvania County, Virginia: Tobacco and the Plantation Economy

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lyeatts, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pittsylvania's early colonial history is the history of an economy that struggled to build towns. Historian Maud Clement, writing in her History of Pittsylvania County, observed that the early settlers had intended to found towns and largely failed to do so. The land was sparsely...

Image: Lyeatts | CC BY-SA 3.0

Pittsylvania County, Virginia: The Uranium Under Coles Hill

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. Buried beneath a corner of Pittsylvania County, near the unincorporated community of Coles Hill, is the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States — the seventh largest in the world. Estimates of the resource have suggested values in the billions of dollars. Virgini...

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pittsylvania County, Virginia: Politics, Place Names, and the Long Quiet

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mojo Hand, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pittsylvania has been a Republican stronghold since the 1960s. The last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the county was John F. Kennedy in 1960, although the third-party segregationist George Wallace won it in 1968. The county is divided into seven districts — Banister,...

Image: Mojo Hand | CC BY-SA 4.0