Lee Hall Depot

Lee Hall Depot was constructed in the 1880s as part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway’s effort to establish its Atlantic terminus at Newport News, linking the Ohio River Valley with the sea. Sited on Warwick Road, now Boulevard, it connected the Warwick Courthouse with Williamsburg and Yorktown and traditionally served the Yorktown, Lee Hall, and lower James City County communities as the social and economic focal point of the village of Lee Hall that grew around the station. It is the only remaining station on the Lower Virginia Peninsula from the railroad’s expansion into Warwick County, where five stations once served the county: Lee Hall, Oriana, Oyster Point, Morrison, and Newport News. It stands as a symbol of Newport News’ early development from agrarian Warwick County into the modern City of Newport News and of the history of transportation. The first passenger train from Newport News carried local residents and national officials to the Cornwallis Surrender Centennial Celebration on October 19, 1881, on a temporary track laid from Lee Hall to Yorktown. During World War 1, it served as the initial rail link for the military when construction of Camp Eustis on Mulberry Island began in 1918. The present-day depot reflects several additions: the original one-story section facing Newport News, a two-story midsection added in 1893, a waiting-room wing built in 1918, and a storage shed, now razed, completed in 1943. Passenger service ended in the late 1970s, and in 1993 CSX, formerly the C&O Railroad, donated the structure to the City of Newport News, which moved it across the tracks to its current location because it stood too close to the tracks.

Newport News, Virginia · United States