Southside (Richmond, Virginia)
Depending on context, the term "Southside of Richmond" can include some northern areas of adjacent Chesterfield County, Virginia in the Richmond-Petersburg region.
Several ZIP codes on the Southside have a preferred place name of "Richmond, Virginia" even though in some cases that land falls under the completely separate municipal authority of Chesterfield County.
In part to serve as a buffer, the English allotted a large portion of land for French Huguenot refugees to settle in the old Manakin village on the south side of the James River.
After completing prominent construction jobs at the state capitol in Williamsburg, Henry Cary built Ampthill plantation in 1730 near Warwick.
Owing to port traffic, Warwick Road became a major thoroughfare through Southside for the next two centuries, especially as it enabled passage around the falls at the James.
On the part of the James River west of the Fall Line, the descendants of the 1700 Huguenot refugee settlement in Manakintown began to intermingle with the English and settle across Powhatan and western Chesterfield county.
This enabled industrial sites such as the Black Heath coal mines and Bellona Arsenal to ship goods down the James river without having to go through Warwick.
During the Civil War, the Confederacy was generally able to keep the Union troops west of the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, with the main exception being the Bermuda Hundred Campaign.
Suburban rail stations along the R&D led to development in Granite, Virginia (a mining quarry whose post office opened in 1872), Bon Air (the resort colony established 1877), Robious and Midlothian.
The DuPont Spruance plant opened in 1929 along the Jefferson Davis Highway and manufactured rayon, Cordura , and cellophane on the former site of the Ampthill Plantation.
By 1940, a Works Projects Administration guide to Virginia announced "South of Richmond U.S. 1 is lined with tourist cabins, garages, and lunchrooms swathed in neon lights that at night convert the road as far as Petersburg into a glittering midway.
The racial motivations behind this expansion[17] led to a Supreme Court case City of Richmond v. United States and a moratorium on further annexations.
As a part of the negotiations over the precise annexation, much of Bon Air to the west and the Ampthill property to the south (owned by DuPont) remained in Chesterfield County.
Plans were drawn up to create a Powhite Parkway Extension that would extend the road from Chippenham out to Virginia State Route 288, which was completed in 1988.
[21] Before 1988, the main way to get from the Southside to the West End was via the Huguenot Bridge or by crossing the James River inside the Richmond city limits.
[23] In 1996, state leaders announced that the Chippenham Parkeway would be extended eastward in a bridge across the James river to enable faster access to Interstate 295 (Virginia) and the Richmond International Airport.
In 2004, 288 was extended northwards from Brandermill through Powhatan and Goochland Counties, to cross the river at the World War II Veterans Memorial Bridge (Virginia) and complete the beltway around Richmond.
Along the James River, Forest Hill Avenue has seen its own renaissance as some residents have preferred to stay in the city rather than move to the suburbs.
