Newport News Shipyard, home to Newport News Shipbuilding, is located in South Newport
News, Virginia, along the James River.
Sprawling over 550 acres across two miles, approximately 26,000 people are actively employed
by Newport News Shipbuilding today.
Today owned by Huntington Ingalls after their purchase of the property in 2011, it is the
only shipyard in the country that designs, constructs, and fuels nuclear-power aircraft
carriers.
It also constructs nuclear-powered submarines, such as the Virginia and Ohio class submarines.
Newport News Shipbuilding was founded in 1886 by Collis P. Huntington, who also
founded the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.
Given its proximity to the Chesapeake Bay, on behalf of the shipbuilding company Huntington
lobbied for Newport News to become an official city.
Huntington’s ship repair facility was originally known as Chesapeake Dry Dock & Construction
Company.
In 1890, it became Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock.
It was in 1891 that Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock delivered the tugboat Dorothy,
the company’s first ship.
When Teddy Roosevelt commissioned the Great White Fleet in 1907, Newport News Shipyard
had already been constructing ships for the U.S. Navy.
However, it was not until the Great White Fleet that the shipyard became one of the
Navy’s most trusted shipbuilding companies.
Out of sixteen ships that made up the Great White Fleet, seven were constructed in Newport
News.
It went on to build numerous ships, including 6 dreadnoughts between 1907 and 1923, a famous
class of ship that marked a historic transition in naval history.
In the nineteen twenties and early thirties, naval production hit a postwar slump as restrictions
hampered the growth of Navies across the world in the wake of World War I.
As tensions began to rise in Europe, Franklin Roosevelt pushed for Congress to pass the
Vinson-Trammell Act, authorizing 102 warships to be built by the U.S. Navy in eight years.
This was followed by the Naval Act of 1938, augmenting the Navy’s capacity even more.
After the passing of the Two Ocean Navy Act in 1940, the shipbuilding industry in Hampton
Roads increased dramatically.
Newport News became a vital embarkation depot.
In military personnel alone, roughly 1.7 million people came through Hampton Roads during World
War II.
The city saw a 77.2% population increase, rising to a total of approximately 189,000.
As in Portsmouth and Norfolk, the population increase put new pressures on an already weak
housing market.
Many locals converted their houses into boarding homes and rented rooms to shipyard workers.
Shipyard employees slept in shifts because of a lack of room and board, calling beds
such as these “hot beds.”
The effects of this sudden population boom, resulting from the demands for manpower at
the shipyard, carried over into the post-war 1950s.
Numerous subdivisions were developed in what was then Warwick County to house the workers
who now sought to leave cramped living quarters in the city.
Communities such as Hidenwood, Warwick on the James, Brandon Heights, Beaconsdale, and
Riverside rose from the ashes of World War II military-industrial expansion in Hampton
Roads.
These communities replaced the once rich farmland of Warwick County.
At the center of that expansion was Newport News Shipbuilding.
In total, 49 ships were constructed at Newport News Shipyard during World War II.
In 1976, the gantry-style crane, nicknamed "Big Blue," was built at Newport News Shipbuilding.
Its sole purpose is to lift the heaviest portions of aircraft carriers.
The 233-foot tall, 4,600 metric ton crane is said to be the biggest crane in the western
hemisphere.
The crane is most visible when crossing the James River Bridge from Isle of Wight County
to Newport News.
The crane is a visual reminder of the importance of Newport News Shipbuilding, the official
producer of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy.
Yet, it also represents an era of change that can be traced back to that first tugboat.
Nevertheless, it was World War II that truly breathed new light into the Newport News Shipyard.
Its influence on the community can still be recognized today.