Naval Weapons Station Yorktown is a United States Navy base in York County, James City County, and Newport News in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. It provided a weapons and ammunition storage and loading facility for ships of the United States Atlantic Fleet, and more recently, for those from the Fleet Forces Command. Location The Naval Weapons Station (NWS) Complex (including Cheatham Annex) is 20.7 square miles (54 km2) in area, roughly 1/5 of the total land area of York County, in which most of it lies; a small portion is within James City County. The station is bounded on the northwest by the Naval Supply Center Cheatham Annex, the Virginia Emergency Fuel Farm, and land owned by the Department of the Interior; on the northeast by almost of the York River and the Colonial National Historical Park; on the southwest by Route 143 and I-64; and on the southeast by Route 238 and the community of Lackey. The station borders the cities of Newport News and Williamsburg. It shares almost of the York River shoreline (about half of York County's York River shoreline and wetlands) with the National Park Service. The large Camp Peary, which also has much York River frontage on the northern side of the Virginia Peninsula, is adjacent to the Naval Station. History The site of NWS Yorktown is rich in colonial era (1607–1776) history, as well as that of the American Civil War (1861–1865). The station is located on the York River, in an area that was an early settlement of English colonists in Virginia. They displaced the Algonquian-speaking Kiskiack and other American Indian tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, who historically inhabited the area. The oldest structure at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station is the brick "Kiskiack (Lee House)", built as a private residence in the late 17th century by English immigrant Henry Lee or his near descendants. At that time, the owner of the farm likely cultivated tobacco for export. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. Descendants of the Lee family owned the property until its acquisition in 1918 by the federal government for the Navy Mine Depot. The colonial infantry of the American Revolutionary War and forces of the Civil War slogged along the Old Williamsburg Road that today runs through the station. Around 1914, the DuPont Company acquired a site on the