page_title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
section_title: West Virginia coal development and Newport News piers
hierarchical_section_title: Chesapeake and Ohio Railway / History / West Virginia coal development and Newport News piers
caption_attribution_description: File name: 06_10_021249 Title: Chesapeake and Ohio Terminal, Newport News, Va. Created/Published: Pub. by Dominion News Agency, Newport News, VA. Tichnor Quality Views, Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Made Only by Tichnor Bros., Inc., Boston, Mass. Date issued: 1930 - 1945 (approximate) Physical description: 1 print (postcard)&#160;: linen texture, color&#160;; 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. Genre: Postcards Subject: Harbors Notes: Title from item. Collection: The Tichnor Brothers Collection Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department Rights: No known restrictions
context_page_description: The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads began in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town of Huntington, West Virginia, was named for him.
  Tapping the coal reserves of West Virginia, the C&O's Peninsula Extension to new coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads resulted in the creation of the new City of Newport News. Coal revenues also led the forging of a rail link to the Midwest, eventually reaching Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo in Ohio and Chicago, Illinois.
  By the early 1960s the C&O was headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. In 1972, under the leadership of Cyrus Eaton, it became part of the Chessie System, along with the Baltimore and Ohio and Western Maryland Railway. The Chessie System was later combined with the Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville and Nashville, both the primary components of the Family Lines System, to become a key portion of CSX Transportation in the 1980s.
  C&O's passenger services ended in 1971 with the formation of Amtrak.
context_section_description: Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Collis P. Huntington and his associates began buying up land in Warwick County, Virginia. During the ten years from 1878 to 1888, C&O's coal resources began to be developed and shipped eastward. Transportation began of southern West Virginia coal to Newport News where it was loaded on coast-wise shipping and transported to the Northeast became a staple of the C&O's business at this time.
  In 1881, C&O's new Peninsula Extension was completed from Richmond through the new Church Hill Tunnel and down the Virginia Peninsula through Williamsburg to reach coal piers located on the harbor Hampton Roads, the East Coast of the United States' largest ice-free port. The Peninsula Subdivision featured gentle grades through coastal plains of the Tidewater region of Virginia, dropping only about 30 feet in elevation, from Richmond (54 feet above sea-level) to Newport News (at 15 feet above sea-level).
  Collis P. Huntington helped develop the tiny unincorporated community at Newport New Point into a new independent city with the coal and other railroad business and the development of Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company.
  In 1883-84 the failure of the railroad to repay a loan led to the failure of the finance company Fisk & Hatch and the Newark Savings Institution (which held much of its money with Fisk & Hatch).
caption: Postcard showing the Chesapeake and Ohio Terminal in Newport News, c. 1930–1945
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