Midlothian, VA news and local guide

To carry the coal, mine owners built the Manchester and Falling Creek Turnpike in 1804, graveled in 1807 as Virginia's first hard-surfaced road, and by 1824 70 to 100 wagons a day hauled coal to the docks at Manchester. In 1831 the Chesterfield Railroad, a 13-mile line powered by mules and gravity, began running to Manchester, the first railroad in the state. The Richmond and Danville Railroad's Coalfield Station replaced it by 1852; Union troops burned the depot in 1864, and it was rebuilt in 1866. The village appeared on early maps as Coal Mines and later Coalfield. Its present name is linked to the Midlothian Coal Mining Company, incorporated in the 1830s by Abraham Salle and Dr. Archibald Logwood Wooldridge, whose family had ties to Midlothian, Scotland. First Baptist Church of Midlothian, the county's first Black church, was founded in 1846. Swift Creek Reservoir, built in 1965, spurred suburban growth, and the old mines are preserved in Mid-Lothian Mines Park, opened in 2004. Sources Wikipedia: Midlothian, Virginia