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Louisa,
Virginia, the seat of Louisa County, was formed from
Hanover County in 1742. At the meeting of the first Court held
on December 13, 1742 at the home of Matthew
Jouett, permission was granted to Mr. Jouett to keep an
ordinary at his home by the Court House. This was the start of
a community to be known as Louisa Courthouse and later, the
village or town of Louisa.
The tavern, or ordinary as they were then known, was
located at the Courthouse and served as a place of lodging and
refreshment for the Justices and visitors to the Courthouse.
It also served travelers who might go through the county on
the roads from Richmond to Charlottesville. Its secondary
purpose was as a gathering place for persons on business or
pleasure tasks in the immediate area. Legal notices and
newspapers were on file, mail was distributed, necessities
were distributed, and the taproom was a clearinghouse for news
and gossip. A post office was established at Louisa Courthouse
in September 1800. Ludlow Branham was the first Postmaster,
and the mail during this time period was carried by post
riders and stagecoaches.
No actual records of the village exist as to occupants or
businesses until the publication of a "Gazetteer of
Virginia" by John Martin in 1835. At the time of the
incorporation of the Louisa Courthouse as a town, Chataigne
and Ellis, in their Virginia Business Directory and Gazetteer,
show that the town contained about 250 inhabitants. It also
included four churches, a hotel, seven lawyers, one druggist,
one saddler, one milliner, one confectioner, a lumber firm, a
music store, seven general stores, one general merchandise
merchant, and one liquor dealer, one grocer, one flour mill,
one distiller, and a tin smith; in all, twenty-seven places of
business.
As reported by the census
of 2000, there are 1,401 people, 584 households, and 331
families now residing in the town with a median income for a
family of $42,396.
Louisa, Virginia, located in central Virginia, has all the
advantages of a small community, but is within an hour's drive
from Richmond
and Charlottesville,
and barely two hours from Washington,
D.C., the Blue
Ridge Mountains, and the Atlantic Ocean. Louisa is 35
miles from Charlottesville, VA over local and county roads. Lynchburg,
VA, home of the Jack
Daniels Distillery, is another 60 miles southwest and Roanoke
and additional 50 miles west. Richmond, VA, is 50 miles to the
east but is accessed via a faster moving state highway, making
the travel time to each city equal.
Festivals, bazaars, fairs and horse shows abound in Louisa
from spring through fall. Fire Departments, churches, The
Public School Board, Lions,
Rotary
and Chamber
of Commerce all organize their own events
to keep the residents and visitors to Louisa, Virginia
entertained. The Tanyard
Country Club fills almost every weekend with sponsored
golf tournaments, Invitational’s and Open matches. A farmers
market every Saturday from May till November offers produce,
crafts and other wares. Interaction and cooperation among
private, public and municipal organizations runs smoothly in
Louisa. The Trevilians
Volunteer Fire Department has its own web presence to keep
the public informed on a daily basis.
Louisa
Public Schools provides equal education opportunities for
students in grades Kindergarten - 12th grade. There are three
elementary schools, (Thomas
Jefferson Elementary School - Trevilians
Elementary School - Jouett
Elementary School), one middle school (Louisa
County Middle School) and one high school (Louisa
County High School). Each school has its own website,
maintained by one of its own teachers.
Louisa, VA is home to the North
Anna Nuclear Power Station which produces electricity and
jobs for the county's inhabitants. The warm water produced
from the power plant and discharged into the water of Lake
Anna creates what some call central Virginia's best
fishing. The North
Anna River was dammed to form the 13,000-acre lake that
supplies cooling water for the station. Lake Anna’s 200
miles of shoreline and a large
state park have become a popular outdoor recreational
facility.
Louisa, VA even has its own airport
capable of handling small jets. Louisa
County Airport Freeman Field is a modern aviation facility
located two miles southeast of town.
Louisa, Virginia is a modern and growing small town that never
turned its back on its original rural county roots. In fact,
in 2003, Louisa won the Urban
Forestry Award for maintaining and increasing the forest
vegetation in the town limits. That award sums up this
town’s feeling and spirit in any of its endeavors.
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