Bristol is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,219. It is the twin city of Bristol, Tennessee, just across the divulge line, which runs beside the middle of its main street, State Street. It is surrounded upon three sides by Washington County, Virginia, which is combined considering the city for statistical purposes. Bristol is a principal city of the Kingsport–Bristol–Bristol, TN-VA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a component of the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol, TN-VA Combined Statistical Area – commonly known as the “Tri-Cities” region.

Evan Shelby first appeared in what is now the Bristol area around 1765. In 1766, Shelby moved his intimates and decided at a place called Big Camp Meet (now Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia). It is said that Cherokee Indians later inhabited the area and the Indian village was named, according to legend, because numerous deer and buffalo met here to feast in the canebrakes. Shelby renamed the site Sapling Grove (which would difficult be tainted to Bristol). In 1774, Shelby erected a fort on a hill overlooking what is now downtown Bristol. It was an important stopping-off place for notables such as Daniel Boone and George Rogers Clark, as capably as hundreds of pioneers’ en route to the interior of the developing nation. This fort, known as Shelby’s Station was actually a inclusion trading post, way station, and stockade.

By the mid-nineteenth century, when surveyors projected a junction of two railroad lines at the Virginia-Tennessee own up line, Reverend James King conveyed much of his acreage to his son-in-law, Joseph R. Anderson. Anderson laid out the original town of Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia and building began in 1853.

Samuel Goodson, who owned home that adjoined the original town of Bristol TN/VA at its northern boundary (Beaver Creek was the dividing line), started a increase known as Goodsonville. Anderson was unable to incorporate Bristol across the let in lines of Tennessee and Virginia. In 1856, Goodsonville and the native Bristol, Virginia were combination to form the composite town of Goodson, Virginia.