NEWPORT NEWS, a city and a port of entry of south eastern Virginia, U.S.A., on the north side of Hampton Roads and the James river, opposite Norfolk; in Warwick county, but independent of it. It is on Federal highway 6o; is the tide-water terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway ; and is served also by interurban trolley, motor-bus and truck lines, several ferries and numerous steamship lines. Pop. 35,596 in 1920 (40% negroes) ; and 34,417 in the year 1930. Newport News is one of the four cities forming the port of Hampton Roads (q.v.), the principal coal and tobacco port of the United States. Its harbour, spacious and well protected, is connected with the ocean by a channel 600 ft. wide and 35 ft. deep. Nearly a mile of the water front, at the southern end of the city, is occupied by the great railway terminal, covering 337 ac., and comprising 125 m. of track, storage space for 4.500 cars, warehouses with 1,500,000 sq.ft. of floor space, piers specially equipped for handling bunker and cargo coal and other commodities, and a grain elevator with a capacity of 1,000,000 bushels. Farther north on the river are the ship-yards (among the largest in the country) which have built many United States battleships, cruisers, gunboats and numerous merchant vessels (including the largest ever built in America, the S.S. "California," of 31,000 tons displacement, com pleted in 1928), and where in 1922-23 the "Leviathan" was reconditioned. Between these two outstanding features of the
city, about the centre of the water front, is a public park, and near by a municipal harbour for small boats. Newport News exports over 7,000,000 tons of coal and 145,000,000 lb. of tobacco in a year. Its total water-borne commerce in 1926 amounted to 8,887,442 tons. The exports, chiefly tobacco, coal and automo biles, were valued in 1925 at $53,352,024; the imports, largely copra, pulpwood, manganese ore and fertilizer materials, at $3,933,519. Shipbuilding and 'repairing are the principal manu facturing industries. The aggregate factory output in 1927 was valued at The city operates under a commission manager form of government. Its assessed valuation for 1928 was $44,160,902.
A settlement of Irish colonists was planted here in 1621 by Daniel Gookin, and the name was chosen to honour Capt. Christo pher Newport, an associate of John Smith, and Sir William Newce, on whose advice the site was selected. It remained a small hamlet until in 1881 it became the eastern terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway. The city was laid out in 1882 and incorporated in 1896. By 1900 it had a population of 19,635.