Outer Banks History & Outer Banks Countdown: 97 days

I came across this on the web this morning and found it quite interesting;

Summer Settlements
In the early 1800s malaria was a common affliction among mainland farmers and wealthy families along Carolina's coast. This feverous condition was thought to be caused by poisonous vapors escaping from the swamps on hot, humid afternoons. Physicians recommended escaping to the seaside for brisk breezes and salt air. Nags Head was established as a resort destination when a Perquimans County planter bought 200 acres of ocean-tosound land for 50 cents an acre in the early 1830s. Eight years later the Outer Banks's first hotel was built near what is now Jockey's Ridge State Park. Guests arrived at the 200-room Nags Head Hotel from across the sounds on steamships and spent weeks enjoying the beaches and the hotel's formal dining room, ballroom, tavern, bowling alleys, and casino. In 1851 workers enlarged the hotel and added a mile-long track of rails so mule- pulled carts could ease vacationers' journeys to the ocean. The hotel burned down and was rebuilt; later, it was buried by sand. Jockey's Ridge, the East Coast's tallest dune, swallowed the two-story structure bit by bit. Hotel clerks offered discounts during the final years for those who didn't mind digging their way into their rooms. Wealthier visitors who wanted to stay the whole summer built their own vacation cottages on the barrier islands' central plains and eventually on oceanfront property. Some farmers carried their entire households-- cows, pigs, sheep, and all-- across the sounds on small sailing sloops to summer at Nags Head. By 1849 a local visitor remarked that between 500 and 600 visitors bathed daily at the barrier island beach. Meanwhile, locals lived in small wooden houses within the woods, selling fresh fish and vegetables to the new tourists, thereby earning extra income each summer. Here is a recent picture of the miniture golf that use to be at the base of Jockeys Ridge and has beeen buried for years. The shifting sands of yhe outer banks has uncovered a portion of the area.
http://www.insiders.com/outerbanks/main-history3.htm
Nags Head History and the Story Behind the Name
The primary resort destination on these barrier islands for more than a century, Nags Head has been the official name of the area since at least 1738, when it first appeared on maps. Historians say the beach town got its name from the horses that once roamed throughout the islands. The much more colorful legend we Insiders prefer is that Nags Head was derived from a custom locals used to lure ships to the shores. Securing a lantern from a Banker pony's neck, residents would drive the horse up and down the beach, the light swinging with the same motion as a sailboat. The unsuspecting offshore vessel would steer toward the light and proceed to get grounded on the shoals. The locals would then promptly ransack the hapless ship.
In the early 1830s, a Perquimans County planter explored the Outer Banks "with the view of finding a suitable place to build a summer residence where he and his family could escape the poisonous miasma vapors and the attendant fevers," wrote author and historian David Stick in The Outer Banks of North Carolina. "He explored the beach and the sound shore and picked his house site overlooking the latter, near the tallest of the sand hills." The planter paid $100 to an unknown Banker for the 200 acres and built the first summer house on the Outer Banks in Nags Head.
In 1838 the Outer Banks's first hotel was built in Nags Head midway between the sound and the sea. A two-story structure, the grand guesthouse had accommodations for 200 travelers, an elaborate ballroom, a bowling alley, covered porches, and a 5-foot-wide pier that extended from the hotel's front a half-mile into the sound.
The 1850 census showed that 576 people, including 30 slaves, lived year- round in Nags Head, but hundreds more came each summer. By that time the soundside community had become a well- known watering hole for the families of mainland farmers, bankers, and lawyers.
Elizabeth City doctor William Gaskins Pool was the first to build a home on the seaside in 1866, according to a 19thcentury journal kept by Outer Banks resident Edward R. Outlaw Jr. On September 14, 1866, Pool purchased 50 acres "at or near Nags Head, bordering on the ocean, for $30" and constructed his one-story cottage 300 feet from the breakers. "But over there by themselves, his family was very lonely," Outlaw wrote in his book, Old Nag's Head.
Seeing that the Pools survived beside the sea, more people began building on the eastern edges of Nags Head. By the early 1900s, homeowners were erecting their cottages on logs so they could roll them back from encroaching tides. Some of the houses moved three or four times during residents' lifetimes. Oceanfront house moving is still a common practice in Nags Head today. The houses are jacked up, mounted onto a flatbed truck, and slowly inched away from the encroaching sea.
Nags Head became an incorporated town in 1961. This beach area continues to attract anglers and surfers, nature lovers and shoppers, families and fun-seeking adventurers. Charter boat captains Sam and Omie opened a restaurant at Whalebone Junction more than 50 years ago, serving breakfast to their fishing parties. The small wooden eatery still bears their names-and still serves some of the best she-crab soup around.
http://www.insiders.com/outerbanks/main-overviews4.htm#Heading22