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Events that helped shaped the neighborhood
1900s - 1930s
1905 The newly formed Hampton Roads Traction Company began running its trolley car line through Olde Wythe along the waterfront.
1906 A newly built iron bridge across Salter’s Creek connected part of Wythe with 25th Street in Newport News.
1907 During the Jamestown Exposition held in Norfolk, the Old Point View Hotel and the Bay Bank boarding house on the Boulevard (Chesapeake Ave.) provided lodging for visitors, especially those who wished to reach the exhibitions by taking a special ferry which loaded at the foot of Manteo Avenue.
1907 The Virginia state legislature appropriated $25,000 to establish the Virginia School for Colored Deaf and Blind Children on property near Gloucester Street in Wythe.
1909 The Riverview community, located near Electric Avenue [Victoria Boulevard], was the most populous part of the Wythe District with 49 dwellings, 3 stores, a small school, and 2 churches.
1909 A new, two- story, brick George Wythe Elementary School opened on Claremont Avenue when small schools in the area consolidated.
1910 New Stone Road, the first major hard-surfaced road between Hampton and Newport News, was built by the U. S. and state governments and named “The Kecoughtan Road” in an effort to preserve the name of the Indian village which had once stood in the area.
1912 Regular ferry service began from Manteo Avenue to Norfolk and was available until 1914.
1915 President Woodrow Wilson played two rounds of golf at the Hampton Roads Golf and Country Club.
1916 Several small Wythe communities located within the boundaries of Salters Creek, the Hampton Roads, Pear Avenue, and 5th Street obtained permission to incorporate as a town with the name of Kecoughtan.
1916 The area’s first suburb, Indian River Park development in Wythe, was laid out and lots were sold.
1917 Langley Field opened as an Army aviation school and an experimental station named the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics [NACA].
1922 Two elementary schools, Armstrong on Matoaka Road and Woodrow Wilson on Kecoughtan Road, opened to accommodate the growing school population of the Wythe district.
1923 The Riverview and Wythe fire companies, both organized in 1910, merged under the name Wythe District Fire Department.
1926 The first free county library in Virginia, Charles H. Taylor Memorial Library, opened.
1927 The Town of Kecoughtan was annexed by the city of Newport News, leaving Elizabeth City County with a new western boundary at Pear Avenue.
1933 A violent hurricane destroyed the trolley tracks along Chesapeake Avenue.
1936 George Wythe Junior High school opened on Claremont Avenue.
1937 Wythe area residents considered their property being annexed by either Newport News or Hampton.
1939 The Wythe Shopping Center on Kecoughtan Road was the first large commercial development in the area.
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