Editing Danville, Virginia (section)

===18th century===
[[File:View of the Dan River Danville Virginia.JPG|thumb|upright=1.1|The [[Dan River (Virginia)|Dan River]] in downtown Danville]]
Numerous [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes had lived in this part of the [[Piedmont (United States)|Piedmont]] region since prehistoric times. During the colonial period, the area was inhabited by [[Siouan language]]-speaking tribes.

In 1728, English colonist [[William Byrd II|William Byrd]] headed an expedition sent to determine the true boundary between Virginia and [[North Carolina]]. Late that summer, the party camped upstream from what is now Danville. Byrd was so taken with the beauty of the land, that he prophesied a future settlement in the vicinity, where people would live "with much comfort and gaiety of Heart." He named the river along which they camped as the "[[Dan River (Virginia)|Dan]]", for Byrd felt he had wandered "[[From Dan to Beersheba]]."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://danvillehistory.org/history.html|title=History|website=Danville Historical Society|language=en|access-date=2019-06-15|archive-date=April 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414221351/http://www.danvillehistory.org/history.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

After the [[American Revolutionary War]], the first settlement developed in 1792 downstream from Byrd's campsite, at a spot along the river shallow enough to allow fording. It was named "Wynne's Falls", after the first settler. The village developed from the meetings of pioneering [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] veterans, who gathered annually here to fish and talk over old times.

In 1793, the state General Assembly authorized construction of a tobacco warehouse at Wynne's Falls. This marks the start of the town as "The World's Best Tobacco Market", Virginia's largest market for [[brightleaf tobacco]]. The village was renamed "Danville" by an act of November 23, 1793.