Southeast Newport News
History and Location
Newport News, also known as East End, got its name before it grew into the modern city we know today. Early records from the 1600s show the place name “Newportes Newes” near the mouth of the James River, soon after Jamestown was founded. Many of the locals say the name comes from Captain Christopher Newport bringing “good news” of supplies to struggling colonists, hence “Newportes Newes” which was later shortened to Newport News. Others note that maps and company papers from the era show similar spellings tied to early English and Irish place names. Either way, the name appears in the 1610s-1620s, long before major development happened here.
For a long time after that, Newport News was mostly a place on the map and a small riverside community. Its big growth came much later, in the late 1800s. Industrialist Collis P. Huntington extended the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway down the Peninsula to a deep-water coal pier on Hampton Roads. He then founded a shipyard in 1886, which became Newport News Shipbuilding. The rail line, the coal trade, and then the shipyard created jobs, drew people, and turned the quiet point into a busy city.
In wartime, the port became nationally important. The U.S army used Newport News as a Port of Embarkation in World War I and then reactivated the Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation in June 1942 for World War II. Nearby Camp Patrick Henry served as a massive troop-staging area tied to the port’s piers. By the end of the war, well over a million service members had passed through the system on their way overseas, and the city’s population and industry surged to meet the demand.
The City Development Shift of Newport News
The move of the heart of the city from Southeast Newport News to Central Newport News is largely due to industrialization and the consolidation with the city of Warwick in 1958. Southeast Newport lost lots of its development as suburban development began to grow up north, which led to urban development in what is now known as. The consolidation of the city of Newport News and Warwick into one city (taking the name Newport News) allowed the city to have a great amount of urban development. The former Warwick area became a place for new suburban neighborhoods and shopping centers to be created.