Hatteras Island Beach_01

by Greg Reed

Title

Hatteras Island Beach_01

Artist

Greg Reed

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

Historians estimate that the island's earliest residents date back to around 500 AD, and were small tribes of local natives that lived on an unending diet of game, shellfish and seafood. Located miles offshore, the Hatteras Island natives lived peacefully for more than 1,000 years without the threat of invading tribes, a dwindling food supply, harsh winters, or any of the other factors that affected mainland native communities.

Hatteras Island was also one of the first regions that was "discovered" by New World explorers, and was where the famed Lost Colony originally landed before heading north to Roanoke Island. Though the fate of the Lost Colony is still not known, some historians believe that the original 116 settlers moved south to Hatteras Island to escape hostile Roanoke Island tribes. (These theories are strengthened by the mention of unusual "blue-eyed" natives in writings of the 1700s, and the recent discovery of a 16th Century English ring which was found in Buxton in the 1990s.)

The island was effectively settled by European colonists in the 1700s and was populated for the next several centuries by a small but hardy local population that depended on commercial fishing and hunting, the North Carolina lumber trade, and sustenance farming.

By the late 1800s, the ocean waters off of Hatteras Island were among the most traveled, and the most dangerous for coastal mariners, due to the infamous Diamond Shoals. The US government was forced to step in after dozens if not hundreds of shipwrecks were recorded in the region within a few decades' time.

Hatteras Island soon became home to a handful of newly established US Lifesaving Stations, which were manned by some of the most decorated Lifesaving Service crew members of all time. The new Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was also constructed around this time period, 1870, and would quickly rise to fame as the tallest lighthouse in the US, and one of the tallest lighthouses in the world.

As technology improved, the Diamond Shoals became less of a threat, but during World War II a new danger lurked off the Hatteras Island shores in the form of German U-Boats. Stealthy and hard to detect, the U-Boats destroyed several British ships passing through, and it was not unusual for wreckage and even bodies to wash ashore on Hatteras Island on a regular basis.

The epidemic of World War shipwrecks even lead to the construction of a small paved road that connected the beach with Buxton Woods, (which is found just several hundred yards away from the lighthouse), to make it easier for locals to haul debris and casualties inshore.

The latter half of the 20th century was a much sunnier time, and marked an exceptional period of growth for Hatteras Island, which was created via the paving of NC Highway 12 in the 1950s, and the establishment of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge in 1963. Once visitors could arrive on the island without taking a ferry, development boomed and the island became one of the top vacation destinations for Outer Banks visitors.

Source: www.hatteras-nc.com/hatteras-history.html

Uploaded

September 11th, 2017

Colors

Embed

Share

Tags