The tightly developed twenty-two-block residential North End Historic District, paralleling the James River northwest of downtown Newport News, evolved in three major phases between 1900 and 1935. The 1881 extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio tracks to the deepwater terminal, and the founding of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. in 1886 spurred a need for housing. The area was subsequently laid out by the Old Dominion Land Co. In the early period, 1900-10, both shipyard managers and skilled workmen resided here. The more affluent built architecturally distinguished houses along Huntington Avenue overlooking the James River. Many more dwellings were erected for the swelling population during World War I. Prominent residents of the North End Historic District have included shipyard presidents Homer L. Ferguson and Walter A. Post, who also was the city’s first mayor; Samuel R. Buxton and Phillip A. Hiden, later mayors of Newport News; and Saxon W. Holt, Virginia lieutenant governor from 1938-1940.