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Hampton Roads by any other name is still in southeast Virginia

Matt Jones, Staff writer Dec 13, 2018

Hampton Roads. Tidewater. Southeast Virginia. University, also lobbied Bolger at the request of Norportapeake Beach. local officials.

That last one might not have caught on. But in The main reason cited by those opposed to the 1983, it was on the table when the seven cities change, according to Pilot archives, was of southeast Virginia faced a crisis — what confusion. should the region be called? Multiple reporters for the paper wrote that locals Eventually, as we know, they decided on used “Tidewater” to refer only to Virginia Beach, “Hampton Roads.” But how? And why? Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and maybe Suffolk. Newport News and Hampton were part A reader recently posed the question to the Daily of the Peninsula. Press’s new Glad You Asked initiative. The answer: It started with the U.S. Postal Service. Also, there already was a Tidewater, Virginia, that went beyond the southeast. The Code of In January 1983, the service opened a new Virginia defines Tidewater as a region that $13.1 million mail facility at 600 Church St. in includes Richmond and Alexandria, anywhere Norfolk that would process mail from all seven past the fall line where river levels are affected cities: Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia by tides. Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Suffolk. “Tidewater is a designation that could be applied Previously, mail went through processing to the coastline throughout Virginia and beyond facilities in each of the cities, meaning mail from Virginia, whereas Hampton Roads was a specific Newport News would be postmarked “Newport geographical name around which our community News, Va.” and from Hampton would be and metropolitan region was organized,” Trible postmarked “Hampton, Va.” Now, all of the said in a recent interview. area’s mail would go through one center. Hampton Roads, what the mouth of the James That meant that the region needed a postmark. River had been called for centuries, had better The postal service decided on “Tidewater Va.” global name recognition in the eyes of local officials in addition to being more specific. It was In a letter obtained by The Virginian-Pilot in a well-traveled waterway and the name of a 1983, then-postmaster general William Bolger major Civil War naval battle. said that the name had been selected in the mid-1970s after meetings with local elected “In our dealings with states and nations, it was officials. Hampton mayor James Eason told the important that we define as one community, as newspaper in December 1982 that he didn’t see one metropolitan reason, and that this the change as “any earth-shattering situation.” geographical name, Hampton Roads, more clearly and powerfully communicated that fact,” But by the time it came to start using the new Trible said. stamp, local officials were less complacent. On Jan. 22, 1983, two days before the Rep. G. William Whitehurst, who represented “Tidewater Va.” postmark went into effect, the Norfolk and Virginia Beach at the time, sent a mayors and city managers of all seven cities letter asking Bolger to reconsider. Sen. Paul voted unanimously in a meeting in Chesapeake Trible Jr., now president of Christopher Newport © The Daily Press, All rights reserved. to recommend “Hampton Roads Va.” as a On March 29, 1983, the first letters were replacement. postmarked as Hampton Roads.

In March, Bolger sent a letter to Whitehurst and And Norportapeake Beach — a combination of Trible honoring his promise to change the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Chesapeake-Virginia Beach postmark if all the cities could agree on a name. half-jokingly proposed in a Pilot column — never got off the ground.

Matt Jones, 757-247-4729, [email protected], @jones_mattryan