Sign in Using FacebookCharlottesville Guide » More About Charlottesville: Interesting Facts
Interesting Facts
- A testament to Thomas Jefferson's style and genius, Monticello is the only home in the United States to earn a slot on the United Nation's elite World Heritage List.
- What's the difference between being a local and a yokel in Charlottesville? For starters, you have to master the university name game. The area under the auspices of the University of Virginia is called "The Grounds," not "the campus." The University's founder is referred to as "Mr. Jefferson," not "Thomas Jefferson" or "T. J." The row of businesses across from campus is "The Corner" and not to be confused with "Downtown." While the folks on ESPN may call the university athletic teams "the Cavaliers," students and alumni know them as the "Hoos."
- A Presidential affair? When the University of Virginia was founded in 1817, President James Monroe laid the cornerstone. In attendance at that ceremony were Presidents Jefferson and Madison.
- Stories to tell: In 1826, a young Edgar Allan Poe enrolled at UVA to study Ancient and Modern Languages. While the young, brooding talent excelled in the classroom – taking top honors on his final examinations in French and Latin – economic woes and subsequent gambling debts forced him to withdraw the following year. Tours of UVA's academic village include a walk down Poe Alley and a stop by the writer's humble, old digs in the West Wing: Room 13.
- More or less on the sidelines during much of the Civil War's action, Charlottesville managed to chip in by being home to the Confederate Hospital, which cared for approximately 22,000 soldiers. The hospital "campus" included the Rotunda and old Town Hall (now the Levy Opera House).
- DMB. Ask just about any student who has attended UVA since the early '90s to identify the significance of those initials, and he'll likely let you hear all about the first time he saw the Dave Matthews Band perform, or she'll recount how she ran into the homegrown band's eponymous lead vocalist sipping wine at C & O or some other trendy downtown eatery.
- Renowned worldwide as an institute of of higher learning, the University of Virginia has produced no small number of distinguished alumni. Included on the list are President Woodrow Wilson, Senators George Allen and Robert Kennedy, Hollywood producer Mark Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor, and astronaut Kathryn Thornton. Although he never graduated, writer Edgar Allan Poe is considered part of the UVA family as well.
- The county seat of Albemarle County (1744) for more than 200 years, Charlottesville was selected as such thanks to its central location along the "Three Notched Road," the main thoroughfare between Richmond and the settlements of the Shenandoah Valley.
- 'Twas a Nobel thing. During the 1956-57 academic year, the University of Virginia employed its first writer-in-residence, novelist William Faulkner.
- In 1976, Charlottesville's Main Street received a massive face lift that included closing the east and west ends of the street to auto traffic and laying red brick on top of everything that was once asphalt or concrete. The result: a beautiful, European-style downtown that is one of the region's shopping, dining, and nightlife hubs.
Eat Out and Save Money!
