Biohazard Cleanup Near Ashley Ettrick, VA

Ettrick is a census-designated place (CDP) in Chesterfield County, Virginia, situated on a bluff across the Appomattox River from the city of Petersburg.

The population of Ettrick was 7,241 at the 2020 census, up from 6,682 in 2010 and 5,627 in 2000.

Ettrick was named around 1765 by the Scottish merchant Neil Buchanan, who called the village Ettrick Banks for its resemblance to his native Ettrick area of Selkirk, Scotland.

During the American Civil War, the Confederate Army established a large hospital at Ettrick.

Ettrick is home to Virginia State University, and the Petersburg Amtrak station is located in Ettrick.

Virginia State University was founded on March 6, 1882, as the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, and it developed as the United States' first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for Black Americans; it is now a public historically Black land-grant university.

John Mercer Langston, who founded the law school at Howard University and was later elected to the U.S. Congress from Virginia, was Virginia State University's first president.

Virginia State University's main campus covers 236 acres in Ettrick, with an additional 412-acre agricultural research facility known as Randolph Farm, and the university enrolled 5,701 students in fall 2024.

Vawter Hall and the Old President's House at Virginia State University were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

According to the Census Bureau, the Ettrick CDP covers about 3.0 square miles, and Census survey data for 2020-2024 put its average at 2.27 persons per household; local children attend Chesterfield County Public Schools.