Newport News, Virginia
Newport News is an independent city in southeastern Virginia, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the fifth-most populous city in Virginia and 140th-most populous city in the United States. The city is at the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the northern shore of the James River to the river's mouth on the harbor of Hampton Roads.
Most of the area now known as Newport News was once a part of Warwick County, one of the eight original shires of Virginia formed in the British Colony of Virginia by order of Charles I of England in 1634. Newport News was a rural area of plantations and a small fishing village until after the American Civil War. In 1881, fifteen years of rapid development began under the leadership of Collis P. Huntington, whose new Peninsula Extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway opened up means of transportation for the railroad to bring West Virginia bituminous coal to port for coastal shipping. Within a few years, Huntington and his associates also built a large shipyard. Newport News was incorporated in 1896, the new incorporated town. In 1958, by mutual consent by referendum, Newport News was consolidated with Warwick, rejoining the two localities to approximately their pre-1896 geographic size under the more widely-known name of Newport News.
With many residents employed at the expansive Newport News Shipbuilding, the joint U.S. Air Force–Army installation at Joint Base Langley–Eustis, and other military bases and suppliers, the city's economy is very connected to the military. The location on the harbor and along the James River facilitates a large boating industry which can take advantage of its many miles of waterfront. Newport News also serves as a junction between the rails and the sea with the Newport News Marine Terminals located at the East End of the city. Served by major east–west Interstate Highway 64, it is linked to other cities of Hampton Roads by the circumferential Hampton Roads Beltway, which crosses the harbor on two bridge-tunnels. Part of the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport is in the city limits.
Etymology
The original area near the mouth of the James River was first referred to as Newportes Newes as early as 1621.The source of the name Newport News is not known with certainty, though it is the oldest English city name in the Americas. Several versions are recorded, and it is the subject of popular speculation locally. Probably the best-known explanation holds that when an early group of Jamestown colonists left to return to England after the Starving Time during the winter of 1609–1610 aboard a ship of Captain Christopher Newport, they encountered another fleet of supply ships under the new Governor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, in the James River off Mulberry Island with reinforcements of men and supplies. The new governor ordered them to turn around and return to Jamestown. Under this theory, the community was named for Newport's "good news". Another possibility is that the community may have derived its name from an old English word "news" meaning "new town". At least one source claims that the "New" arose from the original settlement's being rebuilt after a fire.
Another source gave the original name as New Port Newce, named for a person with the name Newce and the town's place as a new seaport. The namesake, Sir William Newce, was an English soldier and originally settled in Ireland. There he had established Newcestown near Bandon, County Cork. He sailed to Virginia with Sir Francis Wyatt in October 1621 and was granted of land. He died two days later. His brother, Capt. Thomas Newce, was given "600 acres at Kequatan, now called Elizabeth Cittie." A partner Daniel Gookin completed founding the settlement.
In his 1897 two-volume work Old Virginia and her Neighbors, American historian John Fiske writes:
... several old maps where the name is given as Newport Ness, being the mariner's way of saying Newport Point.The fact that the name formerly appeared as "Newport's News" is verified by numerous early documents and maps, and by local tradition. The change to Newport News came about through usage; by 1851 the Post Office Department sanctioned "New Port News" as the name of the first post office. In 1866 it approved the name as "Newport News", the current form.
History
European settlement
During the 17th century, shortly after founding of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, English settlers explored and began settling the areas adjacent to Hampton Roads. In 1610, Sir Thomas Gates seized a nearby Native American village, which became known as Kecoughtan. At that time, settlers began clearing land along the James River for plantations, including the present area of Newport News.In 1619, the area of Newport News was included in one of four huge corporations of the Virginia Company of London. It became known as Elizabeth Cittie and extended west all the way to Skiffe's Creek. Elizabeth Cittie included all of present-day South Hampton Roads.
By 1634, the English colony of Virginia consisted of a population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants. It was divided into eight shires of Virginia, which were renamed as counties shortly thereafter. The area of Newport News became part of Warwick River Shire, which became Warwick County in 1637. The first courthouse was located near the shores of the James River at Warwick Town near Denbigh Plantation. In 1810, the county seat was at Denbigh.
Build-up to Incorporation
Newport News was a rural area of plantations and a small fishing village until after the American Civil War. The area that formed the present-day southern end of Newport News had long been established as an unincorporated town. After Reconstruction the new City of Newport News was essentially founded by California merchant Collis P. Huntington. Huntington, one of the Big Four associated with the Central Pacific Railroad, in California, formed the western part of the country's First transcontinental railroad. He was recruited by former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham to become a major investor and guiding light for a southern railroad. He helped complete the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway to the Ohio River in 1873.Huntington knew the railroad could transport coal eastbound from West Virginia's untapped natural resources. His agents began acquiring land in Warwick County in 1865. In the 1880s, he oversaw extension of the C&O's new Peninsula Subdivision, which extended from the Church Hill Tunnel in Richmond southeast down the peninsula through Williamsburg to Newport News, where the company developed coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads. On October 19, 1881, the first train to ever depart from Newport News left Lee Hall Depot on temporary tracks and arrived at Yorktown for the 'Cornwallis Surrender Centennial Celebration", a commemoration of the British defeat at the Battle of Yorktown.
His next project was to develop Chesapeake Dry Dock & Construction Company, known from 1890 as the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. The shipbuilding was originally intended to build boats to transition goods from the rails to the seas, but would quickly grow from additional work from the US Navy, including building the two Kearsarge class battleships and the USS Illinois by 1900. With time, it would become the world's largest shipyard.
Construction of the railroad and establishment of the great shipyard brought thousands of workers and associated development. A rapid building boom occurred, including Hotel Warwick, churches, a newspaper, banks, and a courthouse. From 1888 to 1896, the county seat of Warwick County, Virginia was moved to Newport News area, reflecting the growing importance of the area. On January 16, 1896 Newport News incorporated as an independent city, fully separate of Warwick County. It was one of only a few cities in Virginia to be newly established without earlier incorporation as a town. Walter A. Post served as the city's first mayor.
1900s
In 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet on its round-the-world voyage. NNS had already built seven of that fleet's 16 battleships. In 1906 the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought launched a great additional naval buildup worldwide, and the Newport News would directly benefit from that work, leading all the way up to World War I.From 1912 to 1914, Collis Huntingon's nephew, Henry E. Huntington, assumed leadership of the shipyard. Huntington Park, developed after World War I near the northern terminus of the James River Bridge, is named for him.
Albert Lloyd Hopkins, president of Newport News Shipbuilding at that time, was killed May 7, 1915 while traveling to England on shipyard business aboard RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German submarine. Homer L. Ferguson became president of the company, and would see it through both World Wars. During World War I, Newport News was headquarters to the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation. Between 1918 and 1920 NNS delivered 25 destroyers to the US Navy.
In 1917, after being contracted by the US Navy, Newport News Shipbuilding hired thousands of workers from across the country to fulfill this contract. However, it was not long after this that the city of Newport News began to suffer a housing crisis. So as not to impede on the contract and the war effort as a whole, Congress funded the very first government-built planned community. This community, made up of 473 English-Village-Styled homes, would become the historic Hilton Village neighborhood.
The city grew in territory through the annexation of parts of Warwick County and also of the town of Kecoughtan in adjoining Elizabeth City County in 1927.
Collis Huntington's son, Archer M. Huntington and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, developed the Mariners' Museum beginning in 1932. They created a natural park and the community's Mariners' Lake in the process. A major feature of Newport News, the Mariners' Museum has grown to become one of the largest and finest maritime museums in the world.
In World War II, Newport News would again be the headquarters for the reactivated Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation.
Although fashionable housing and businesses developed in downtown, the increase in industry and the development of new suburbs pushed and pulled retail and residential development to the west and north after World War II. Such suburban development was aided by national subsidization of highway construction and was part of a national trend to newer housing.
In 1958, the citizenry of the cities of Warwick and Newport News voted by referendum to consolidate the two cities, choosing to assume the better-known name of Newport News. The merger created the third largest city by population in Virginia, with a area. The boundaries of the City of Newport News today are essentially the boundaries of the original Warwick River Shire and the traditional one of Warwick County, with the exception of minor border adjustments with neighbors.
In July 1989, the United States Navy commissioned the third naval vessel named after the city with the entry of the Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, built at Newport News Shipbuilding, into active service. The ship was initially commanded by CDR. Mark B. Keef; the city held a public celebration of the event, which was attended by Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle. In conjunction with this milestone, a song was written by a city native and formally adopted by Newport News City Council in July 1989. The lyrics appear with permission from the author:
: Harbor of a thousand ships/Forger of a nation's fleet/Gateway to the New World/Where ocean and river meet
: Strength wrought from steel/And a people's fortitude/Such is the timeless legacy/Of a place called Newport News
: Nestled in a blessed land/Gifted with a special view/Forever home for ev'ry man/With a spirit proud and true