Richmond was the most prominent of the towns that emerged at the fall line of the James River during Virginia's colonial period. As early as 1608, the English settlers eyed a
community near the seven-mile-long series of rapids that divided the head of
navigation at the river's downstream end and the calm stretch of water upriver from
it. The area provided a series of strategic advantages: as a port, as a location for
mills, and as a transitional territory between the Tidewater-based Po. . .
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