City of Chesapeake formed
In 1963, the new independent city of Chesapeake was created when the former independent city of South Norfolk consolidated with Norfolk County. The consolidation, authorized by the Virginia General Assembly, was approved and the new name selected by the voters of each communities by referendum. The new city is part of the current region of Hampton Roads which..Read More
Jamestown Exposition
The Jamestown Exposition for the 300th anniversary of the 1607 founding of Jamestown was held at Sewell’s Point in a rural section of Norfolk County in 1907. President Theodore Roosevelt arrived by water in the harbor of Hampton Roads, as did other notable persons such as Mark Twain and Henry Huttleston Rogers, who both arrived aboard the latter’s steam yacht Kanawha. A major naval..Read More
Intracoastal Waterway
The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a 3,000-mile (4,800 km) inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Boston, Massachusetts, southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, then following the Gulf Coast to Brownsville, Texas. Some sections of the waterway consist of natural inlets, saltwater rivers, bays, and sounds, while others..Read More
Dismal Swamp Canal
The Dismal Swamp Canal is located along the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina in the United States. It is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States, opened in 1805. It is part of the Intracoastal Waterway, an inland route, which parallels the east coast and offers boaters shelter from the Atlantic Ocean from Manasquan Inlet, New..Read More
Norfolk County formed
Formed in 1691 in the Virginia Colony, Norfolk County had originally included essentially all the area which became the towns and later cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and South Norfolk, but had seen its area frequently reduced as these cities added territory through annexations after 1871. Becoming an independent city was a method for..Read More
First Landing
The first colonists arrived in 1607 when English Captain Christopher Newport landed at Cape Henry, today’s City of Virginia Beach, an event now called the “First Landing.” However, his party moved on, in search of a more defensible area upriver, mindful of competitors such as the Spanish, who had built a failed settlement..Read More
