What is currently Danville was discovered as ground for a good camp site by in the 1720s by British Colonial surveyors exploring and measuring the area as they met different Native American Nations between Virginia and North Carolina.

Searching for the correct colony borders, they stopped to camp by a nearby river that that William Byrd decided should be called "Dan" after the Tribe of Dan in the Old Testament. This was considered by some to be his tribute to the area as a "promised land" full of natural wealth. In the future, that wealth would be realized in cotton, tobacco, and other agricultural products.

Downtown Danville contains 25 acres of history in the textiles, bright leaf tobacco production, and other manufacturing industries after the American Revolution, facilitated by commerce transport on the Dan River. These businesses supported an economy that attracted new residents and merchants from the 1790s through the Civil War. As the last Capital of the American Confederate States, it saw six of its large tobacco warehouses turned into prisoner-of-war camps for Union soldiers. There, starvation, smallpox and dysentery killed over 1,300 out of five thousand prisoners as well as many local residents. However, Danville was able to rebound.

After the beginning of post-war Reconstruction, the railroads helped business (particularly cotton) and the local population to increase through the 1920s. This is a pattern similar to that of Wilmington, Delaware, another Top Micro-City for the Future. A second similarity with Wilmington is Danville's early focus on "high style" architecture like that of the long-time US Post Office and Masonic buildings, with many buildings recognized today on the National Register of Historic Places. This include's Millionaire's Row along Main Street on a popular walking tour of the city beside homes and businesses of business people of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Downtown Danville holds an annual Harvest Festival and a yearly Bright Leaf Brew Fest, and offers several entertainment venues, recreation, and a minor league baseball club - the Danville Braves.

1. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
2. Danville Regional Medical Center
3. City of Danville
4. Danville City Public Schools
5. Telvista Incorporated
6. Nestle U.S.A.
7. Danville Community College
8. Courtland Health Care Center
9. Averett College
10. Atlantic Shipping Company

.

Undoubtedly, the staffing companies listed in the column to the right place professionals in positions listed at these Top 10 Employers above. Additional positions filled by staffing agencies are not always listed online in Internet job search engines.

1. Counselors, Social Workers, etc.
2. Food/Beverage Service Jobs
3. Teachers - Primary, Secondary, and Special Education
4. Registered Nurses (RNs)
5. Computer Software App. Engrs
6. Retail Salespersons
7. Personal Financial Advisers
8. Nursing & Psychiatric Aides
9. Information, Records, and General Office Clerks
10. Rehabilitation Counselors

While a variety of jobs have been forecast to be fast-growing through 2016 by the US Federal Government and state agencies, these forecasts have not matched growth jobs in Danville from 2005 - 2009 of in 2nd QTR 2009 job listings. 

A reenactment each year commemorates the Crossing of the Dan River during what is known as the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution in 1781. The Historical Exhibit in Halifax County, Virgina relates the story of the event in a permanent installation and is open year round.

America's commander in Virgnina, Nathanael Greene - also a Quaker - laid out a course for delivering supplies across the Dan River to his troops in North Carolina. At the time, he did not know that he was mapping out the "beginning of the end" of the Revolutionary War.

During the last stages of the Southern Campaign (in the Carolinas and Georgia), the British attempted to chase the American troops up through the Carolinas and overtake them before they crossed the River Dan into Virgina (full of American encampments). The Americans were successful in their river crossing and turned the tide of the war toward the decline of the British campaign. The river waters rose high enough behind the Americans that the British could not cross and Greene and his men, rested and with additional troops, soon recrossed the Dan and routed the British.

The Crossing of the Dan history exhibit opened in the summer of 2008 and has enjoyed many visitors. It is located 27 miles northeast of Danville in South Boston, Virginia. Their website is at the Race to the Dan.

For additional North American and US History, please see What is the History of the USA?

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