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Lynchburg is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 65,269. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" and sometimes described as "A City Unto Itself." The 2,122 square mile Metropolitan Statistical Area of Lynchburg is near the geographic center of Virginia and encompasses Amherst County, Appomattox County, Bedford County, Campbell County, City of Bedford, and City of Lynchburg. It is the fifth largest MSA in Virginia. Other nearby cities include Roanoke, Charlottesville and Danville. Lynchburg's sister cities are Rueil-Malmaison, France and Glauchau, Germany. Lynchburg is the home of Central Virginia Community College, Christ College, Liberty University, Lynchburg College, Randolph College, and Virginia University of Lynchburg. The Lynchburg MSA also includes Sweet Briar College. Lynchburg has a strong industrial base and is the regional center for commerce and retail. Industries include nuclear technology, pharmaceuticals and material handling. A diversity of small businesses has helped maintain a stable economy and minimized the downturns of the national economy. Reaching as high as 4th place, Lynchburg has been within the Top 10 Digital Cities survey for its population since the survey's inception in 2004. History
First settled in 1757, Lynchburg was named for its founder, John Lynch, who at the age of 17 started a ferry service at a ford across the James River to route traffic to and from New London. He was also responsible for Lynchburg's first bridge across the river, which replaced the ferry in 1812. The "City of Seven Hills" quickly developed along the hills surrounding Lynch's Ferry. Thomas Jefferson maintained a home near Lynchburg, called Poplar Forest. Jefferson frequented Lynchburg and remarked "Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be useful to the town of Lynchburg. I consider it as the most interesting spot in the state." Lynchburg was established by charter in 1786 at the site of Lynch's Ferry on the James River. These new easy means of transportation routed traffic through Lynchburg, and allowed it to become the new center of commerce for tobacco trading. It was a center of commerce and manufacture in the 19th century. Chief industries were tobacco, iron and steel. Transportation facilities included the James River Bateau on the James River, and later, the James River and Kanawha Canal and, still later, four railroads, including the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. In 1810, Jefferson wrote, "Lynchburg is perhaps the most rising place in the U.S.... It ranks now next to Richmond in importance..." In 1804, evangelist Lorenzo Dow wrote of Lynchburg "... where I spoke in the open air in what I conceived to be the seat of Satan's Kingdom. Lynchburg was a deadly place for the worship of God." This was in reference to the lack of churches in Lynchburg. As the wealth of Lynchburg grew, prostitution and other "rowdy" activities became quite common and, in many cases, ignored, if not accepted, by the "powers that be" of the time. Much of this activity took place in an area of downtown referred to as the "Buzzard's Roost." During the American Civil War, Lynchburg, which served as a Confederate supply base, was approached within one mile by the Union forces of General David Hunter as he drove south from the Shenandoah Valley. Under the false impression that the Confederate forces stationed in Lynchburg were much larger than anticipated, Hunter was repelled by the forces of Confederate General Jubal Early on June 18, 1864, in the Battle of Lynchburg. To create the false impression, a train was continuously run up and down the tracks while the citizens of Lynchburg cheered as if reinforcements were unloading. Local prostitutes took part in the deception, misinforming their Union "clients" of the large number of Confederate reinforcements. In the latter 19th century, Lynchburg's economy evolved into manufacturing (sometimes referred to as the "Pittsburgh of the South") and, per capita, made the city one of the wealthiest in the United States. In 1880, Lynchburg resident James Albert Bonsack invented the first cigarette rolling machine, and shortly thereafter Dr. Charles Browne Fleet, a physician and pharmacological tinkerer, introduced the first mass marketed over-the-counter enema, which the company he founded still manufactures (along with other laxative and bowel cleansing products, as noted on the company's website [1]). Dr. Fleet also invented ChapStick as a lip balm in Lynchburg in the early 1880s. In the early 20th century, the state of Virginia authorized compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for the purpose of eugenics which was carried out at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded located just outside of Lynchburg. Lynchburg is sometimes referred to as "A City Unto Itself", in part due to geographic and cultural isolation, but mostly in reference to the city's historical avoidance of State and Federal entanglements. The phrase was the title of a history book by columnist Darrell Laurant. Research Tips
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