Oilville is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Goochland County,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, United States. Oilville is located on

U.S. Route 250 U.S. Route 250 (US 250) is a route of the United States Numbered Highway System, and is a spur of U.S. Route 50. It currently runs for from Richmond, Virginia, to Sandusky, Ohio. It passes through the states of Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohi ...

west-northwest of

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

. Oilville has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

with ZIP code 23129. The historic Woodlawn Plantation is located here. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1971. Oilville got its unusual name because a Sassafras oil factory was located there in the 1900s: In the Goochland County Historical Society Magazine Vol.26 from 1994, Wendell Watkins reminisces about his childhood in an article titled The Oilville Mill. He recalls that local legend had it that Oilville was an important stage coach stop on Three Chopt Road, known then as Horsepen Mills. He said that when a sassafras oil mill was set up there, it then became known as Oilville. He recalled “as a very small boy, I remember the sassafras logs laying about the woods and the holes where the stumps had been dug out. They used the stumps and roots only for distilling the oil.” Goochland County Historical Society Magazine Vol.26 from 1994 For more information see the story Oilville? by "Wick Hunt" in "Oyster Ranching Etc.", online.

References

Unincorporated communities in Goochland County, Virginia Unincorporated communities in Virginia {{GoochlandCountyVA-geo-stub