Blacksburg is an incorporated town in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 44,826 at the 2020 census.

In the mid-1600s, English colonists were still uncertain of what lay beyond the Allegheny Mountains, whose topography and possession by native inhabitants, Tutelo-speaking tribes, were a barrier to expanded settlement by the Colony of Virginia.

Abraham Wood, who commanded Fort Henry on the frontier (now the site of Petersburg, Virginia), and operated an Indian trading post nearby, organized several expeditions to explore farther west.

A passage over the ridge was finally found in 1671 when explorers Batts and Fallam, sent by Wood, reached the present-day location of Blacksburg, Virginia.

Their expedition followed Stroubles Creek, through the current locations of the town and campus of Virginia Tech, to what they named Wood's River.

They reported the area as inhabited by the Monacan and Moneton, Siouan-speaking groups, but the Virginian colonial legislature had authorized Wood to claim it.

Accordingly, on September 17, 1671, the Batts and Fallam party claimed all of the lands comprising the river's drainage basin for King Charles II.

In 1700, Seneca warriors of the Iroquois Confederacy based in New York and Pennsylvania, overran the entire area, driving out the other bands.

As early as 1718, the Seneca had agreed to sell the parts they had conquered east of the Blue Ridge to the Colony of Virginia.

[7][8] By the Treaty of Easton (1758), and again by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the British Crown made the Allegheny ridge separating the Mississippi and Chesapeake watersheds the official boundary between their Virginia colony and native peoples.

Samuel Black, whose family settled in Staunton, Virginia, bought 600 acres (2.4 km2) of land in the Draper's Meadow area for his sons John and William in 1772.

Smithfield Plantation, built in approximately 1774 by Colonel William Preston,[8] was developed on the original Draper's Meadow site, near the current location of the Duck Pond on the Virginia Tech campus.

In 1797, William Black laid out a small grid of streets and lots comprising 16 blocks on a portion of his land.

The cabin was later added to in the mid 19th century to create a Greek Revival farmhouse now known as Solitude, which is the oldest building on the Virginia Tech campus.

[12] The Methodists had built two cabins to worship in since the town's founding, but they did not build a more permanent structure until 1830, when they constructed a brick church.

Even though there had been a place for secondary education somewhere in town since 1906, it was not until 1952 when the first facility for Blacksburg High School was built on South Main and Eheart Streets.

Ten years later, it was moved into the facility that used to house the Blacksburg Lumber Company on Draper Road.

[15] By 1988, the New River Valley Mall, located in the neighboring town of Christiansburg, was opened[19] and the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center had its first ground-breaking ceremony.

[24] The road is currently closed to the public and used as a research test bed for the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people dead and injured an additional 17 in the Virginia Tech shooting before committing suicide.

At 2,080 feet (634 m) above sea level, Blacksburg is located in the New River Valley and also sits astride the Eastern Continental Divide.

The tallest building in Blacksburg is Slusher Tower, a twelve-story residence hall on the Virginia Tech campus.

[31] Winters are generally cool to cold, with occasional intervening warm periods and an average of 0.9 nights of sub-0 °F (−18 °C) lows.

Blacksburg is served primarily by US 460, a four-lane highway that connects I-81 at Christiansburg, 10 miles to the south, and to I-77 in Princeton, West Virginia.

Students and faculty ride the BT fare free with a flat payment included in the cost of tuition.

Blacksburg Transit also offers shuttle service to non-students on Virginia Tech Football game days for $5 to be transported from outlying parking areas to the stadium.

[33] The Smart Way Bus, a regional commuter bus service operated by Valley Metro (Roanoke), provides connecting service between Virginia Tech, downtown Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport, and Roanoke, where riders can transfer to an Amtrak train.

Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport, located in the Town of Blacksburg, has general aviation, air taxi, and military flights.

The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes the town of Christiansburg, the independent city of Radford, and all of Montgomery, Pulaski, and Giles counties has an estimated population of 181,863 and is currently one of the faster-growing MSAs in Virginia.

The town is also home to MOOG, a major supplier for the defense department and the health care industry and Rackspace, who acquired locally based Mailtrust/Webmail.us in 2007.