History
The site of NWS Yorktown is rich in colonial era (1607–1776) history, as well as that of the American Civil War (1861–1865). The station sits amid the natural beauty of the riverfront, in an area that was an early settlement of English colonists in Virginia. They displaced the Algonquian-speaking Kiskiack and other American Indian tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, who historically inhabited the area. The colonial infantry of the American Revolutionary War and forces of the Civil War slogged along the Old Williamsburg Road. Today it runs through the station. The oldest structure at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station is "Kiskiack", also known as the Lee House, built as a private residence around 1649.
It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Before World War I, the DuPont Company acquired a 4,000-acre (16 km2) site on the banks of the York River and built a dynamite plant, that came to be known as Penniman. Before production started, the Navy acquired the site in August 1918 by presidential proclamation response to the outbreak of World War I in Europe. This became the largest naval installation in the world. The Navy originally created the Navy Mine Depot, Yorktown.
The Navy's intent to lay the North Sea barrage to protect commercial shipping required an Atlantic Seaboard plant. Here the mines would be stored, assembled, loaded, tested and issued to the Service. It also required a station for the training of personnel to adjust and operate the mines. The Navy selected a tract of land, about 18 square miles (47 km2) of area near Yorktown, Virginia, as the best location on the East Coast for its mine activities. The Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy Department assumed possession one month later.
Yorktown was near the Navy Operating Base at Hampton Roads, the Norfolk Navy Yard, and the Fuel Bases of the Fifth Naval District. It had excellent transportation access, with the main lines of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad forming one of the boundaries of the Depot, and five miles (8 km) of waterfront on the navigable York River. Ocean-going vessels of largest size and deepest draft could navigate there.
To make way for the new Mine Depot, the government acquired by eminent domain the property of many landowners along the former Yorktown-Williamsburg Road in nearby Lackey. Both landowners and tenants in this area were primarily African American. (Since the 19th century, this area had been locally known as "the Reservation".)
Assisted by self-educated farmer John Tack Roberts (born ca. 1860), many of the displaced residents of Lackey were able to negotiate better financial compensation for their properties. Many relocated to the community of Grove in nearby James City County. Another small community, also named Lackey, was later developed along the Yorktown Road a few miles away.
As many as 10,000 persons worked at the NWS facility during World War I. Many workers lived in the town of Penniman (est. pop. 15,000). After WWI and the Navy's shift away from mines, this community also vanished as workers moved away. Halstead's Point, another community of workers on the station, also declined and disappeared. It was located near the present main gate off State Route 143.
Read more about this topic: Naval Weapons Station Yorktown
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