Midlothian, Virginia

Midlothian, Virginia
Unincorporated area
Ruins of the Grove Shaft air-pumping station, now part of the Mid-Lothian Mines Park.
Midlothian, Virginia Location of Midlothian, Virginia
Coordinates: 37°31′17.4″N 77°39′53.2″W / 37.521500°N 77.664778°W / 37.521500; -77.664778Coordinates: 37°31′17.4″N 77°39′53.2″W / 37.521500°N 77.664778°W / 37.521500; -77.664778
Country	United States
State	Virginia
County	Chesterfield
Settled	c.1700 (1700)
Founded	c.1730 (1730)
Founded by	Wooldridge brothers
Named for	Mid-Lothian Mining and Manufacturing Company
Government
• District supervisor	Leslie Haley
Elevation	367 ft (112 m)
Population (2010)
• Total	58,880
Time zone	EST (UTC-5:00)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4:00)
ZIP code	23113 & 23114
Area code	804
Website	www.midlothianva.org

Midlothian, Virginia (/mɪdˈloʊθiən/) is an unincorporated town in Chesterfield County, Virginia, U.S. Founded over 300 years ago as a coal town, it is now a suburban community located west of Richmond, Virginia and south of the James River in the Greater Richmond Region.

It was named for the early 18th-century coal mining enterprises of the Wooldridge brothers. They called their new venture the Mid-Lothian Mining and Manufacturing Company. Midlothian is the site of the first commercially mined coal in the Colony of Virginia and in what became the United States.

By the early 18th century, several mines were being developed by French Huguenots and others. The mine owners began to export the commodity from the region in the 1730s. Midlothian-area coal heated the U.S. White House for President Thomas Jefferson. The transportation needs of coal shipping stimulated construction of an early toll road, the Manchester Turnpike in 1807; and the Chesterfield Railroad, the state's first in 1831; each to travel the 13 miles (21 km) from the mining community to the port of Manchester, just below the fall line of the James River. In the early 1850s, the Richmond and Danville Railroad built Coalfield Station near the mines.