Newport News, Virginia: 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 (the eastern most section of which was called Hampton Roads) 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 (currently the border between Newport News and James City County). 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.
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 period after the American Civil War) 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 (BB-7) 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. …