Penniman was an unincorporated town in northwestern York County, Virginia, on the south bank of the York River northeast of Williamsburg. This was on the Virginia Peninsula and near the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia in the United States. A plant and company town were developed by E.I. DuPont Nemours company originally to manufacture TNT. It was named for Russell Sylvanus Penniman, an American chemist who in 1885 invented ammonia dynamite. As part of the World War I war efforts, Penniman was converted to other use in support of the U.S. Navy, which acquired property for Mine Depot, Yorktown. The Penniman plant was built to employ 10,000 persons. Housing for 15,000 was built in the new development. The Navy installation was largely abandoned after 1919, and the few residents in the area farmed after World War I. With tensions rising during World War II, the property was returned to military use less than 25 years later. The area including Penniman was taken over by the military and developed as a Navy facility known as Cheatham Annex. It later became part of the adjacent Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, access to which is restricted. History Prior to World War I, the area was lightly populated and used primarily as farmland. Freedmen and their descendants had farmed in this area since after the Civil War. World War I In 1916, the E.I. DuPont Nemours company announced that it would develop a large black powder and shell-loading plant facility six miles northeast of Williamsburg in York County. The publicity department of the DuPont Powder Company, Wilmington, Delaware estimated that there would possibly be about 200 men employed at the new powder plant. The plant as built was large enough to have 10,000 employees. The new plant and the new town for the workers and families were named Penniman, in honor of Russell Sylvanus Penniman, an American chemist who is credited with the invention of ammonia dynamite in 1885, a safer form than the nitroglycerin used with Alfred Nobel's original formulation. At its peak, Penniman had housing for 15,000, and included dormitories, a store, a post office, bank, police station, church, YWCA, YMCA, Mess Halls canteen, and a hospital. The York County Chapter of the American Red Cross began its initial activities in support of the Dupont Factory and residents of Penniman. In the fall of 1916, the first unit of the plant at