April 2018

Virginia: The Old Dominion

Posted on 04/06/2018 by Nathan Lewis in New Content Releases

The 1987 classic film “Dirty Dancing” was filmed almost entirely at the Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, Virginia

Today, we are excited to announce that over 745,000 aerial photos of Virginia are now available to search and view online. Virginia is known as “the birthplace of a nation” nicknamed “Old Dominion”. It was named for England’s “Virgin Queen,” Elizabeth I. Virginia was the 10th state added to the union and has a long history. Contrary to the common story of the famous dinner with the pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving actually took place here in 1619. With ocean access and a centralized location, almost dividing north from south, Virginia has seen the worst of the wars in our country. Patrick Henry made his “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech in St. John’s Church in Richmond. Eight years later The American Revolution ended with the surrender of Cornwallis in Yorktown. During the Civil war, Virginia was the site of more Civil War battles than any other state, with more than 120 major battles being fought here. That’s an average of one major battle every 12 days. Today Virginia is the “Internet Capital” with estimates that 50 to 70 percent of all Internet traffic flows through data centers located in Northern Virginia. In fact, the images you see at Vintage Aerial are served from Virginia within Amazon’s data centers there.

Jamestown, the first of the original 13 Colonies was founded for the purpose of silk cultivation. After blight fungus destroyed the mulberry trees sericulturist planted tobacco as a cash crop. Today agriculture is Virginia’s largest industry by far! The industry has an economic impact of $55 billion annually. This agricultural production is one of the most diverse in the nation. Many of Virginia’s commodities and products rank in the top 10 among all U.S. states. These include tobacco, apples, grapes, peanuts, tomatoes, and cotton. Virginia has 44,800 farms with an average size of 181 acres. Farms cover 8.1 million acres about 32 percent of Virginia’s total land area. Amazingly, Nearly 90 percent of Virginia farms are owned and operated by individuals or families. 17% of these primary farm operators are female. With this long history of family-run farms, we hope to have preserved this history and the memories attached to them in our collection.

We invite you to come and take a look these homes and farms in our over 745,000 aerial photos of this great state. Home is the place where you became you. Find your way back today!