Lee Hall Depot 
The historic Lee Hall Depot was constructed in the 1880s as
part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad’s efforts to establish
its Atlantic terminus at Newport News, thereby linking the Ohio
River Valley with the sea. The station was sited on Warwick Road,
now Boulevard, connecting the Warwick Courthouse with Williamsburg and Yorktown.
Traditionally, the depot served the Yorktown, Lee Hall, and lower
James City County communities and was the social and economic
focal point of the village of Lee Hall that grew around the station.
The depot is the only remaining station on the Lower Virginia
Peninsula from the railroad’s expansion into Warwick County. Five
stations (Lee Hall, Oriana, Oyster Point, Morrison, and Newport
News) once served the county. It is a symbol of Newport News’
early development from the agrarian Warwick County into the
modern City of Newport News and of the history of transportation.
The first passenger train from Newport News took 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 I, the depot served as the
initial rail link for the military when the construction of Camp Eustis
on Mulberry Island began in 1918.
The present-day Lee Hall Depot is a culmination of progressive
additions. The original two-story mid-section and freight room was erected in the 1880s. In 1893 the freight room was lengthened. A
final wing with segregated waiting rooms was added in 1918 to
accommodate increased passenger traffic. A storage shed, now
razed, was completed in 1943.
Passenger service ended in the late 1970s. The building was then
used as a maintenance facilty. In 1993, CSX, formerly the C&O
Railroad, offered to donate the structure to the City of Newport News, with the stipulation that the City move the depot further away from
the tracks.