 The Newport News Waterworks was begun as a project of Collis P. Huntington as part of the development of the lower peninsula with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the coal piers on the harbor of Hampton Roads, and massive shipyard which were the major sources of industrial growth which helped found Newport News as a new independent city in 1896.It included initially an impoundment of the Warwick River in western Warwick County.Later expansions included more reservoirs, including one at Skiffe's Creek and another at Walker's Dam on the Chickahominy River.