Scottsville is a town located in Albemarle County in the Charlottesville metro area. The community is in the Eastern Standard time zone.
The latitude of Scottsville is 37.798N. The longitude is -78.495W. Elevation is 295 feet.
The estimated population, in 2003, was 555.
Scottsville is on the James River in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.0 km² (1.5 mi²). None of the area is covered with water.
According to Scottsville's website, the town "served as Virginia's westernmost center of government and commerce during the 1700's, when rivers were the primary means of travel in the new American wilderness." During the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century attempts were made to improve navigability along the James, as well as other central Virginian rivers. Part of this was the construction of a canal running roughly parallel with the James west from Richmond. Scottsville was the largest port town along this route, called the James River and Kanawa Canal. The ultimate goal of this project was to connect the Atlantic with the Ohio River via the Kanawha River. These aims were not achieved, due to interruption by the American Civil War and the rise of the train. It did however succeed in making Scottsville a busy, prominent town.
In fact, thanks to a wagon road connecting Staunton to Scottsville, all of the agricultural wealth of the Shenandoah Valley poured into town en route to Richmond and the sea, thereby making Scottsville the largest grain market in the state. Trade died down when Union soldiers broke the canal works in the area. Then the train came, the tracks being laid directly on the towpath of the old canal, a monument to its demise. Eventually, the train too stopped taking passengers, leaving Scottsville a sleepy country town on a coal line.
Scottsville has been flooded several times due to its proximity to the James River. Since 1870, Scottsville has been the victim of twenty-one floods (defined as water levels of twenty feet or more above the average low water level). In 1985, the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam around the lowest portion of Scottsville, providing protection against further floods.
Please check out the Scottsville Museum:
http://scottsvillemuseum.com/
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