eekly Newspaper Published in the Interests of Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk Beaches—Foremost Summer Resort, Fishing and Hunting Haven
I; NO. 2
NAGS HEAD, N. C., THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1939
^ags head beach club
SATURDAY NiGHT
Club Dance to Feature
by Lexy Ford and
^''=hestra
The
opening dance of the 1939
season will be held at the
, Head Beach ' Club Saturday
''’ith Lexy Ford and .his pop'
(1 *' ^2 piece orchestra supplying
^ >iiusic.
Y '^cording to managers O. L.
and Wheeler Fields, table,
jj^^^^ations are coming, in fast!
all sections of the Albemarle,
Sat '^°^*'a?ers who want tables for
night’s dance should
*ible '^oservations as soon as pos-
^aturday night’s dance will begin
and will last until 2 o’clock.
oiiu wni last
(fij/.®®^nients will be available
iieiv addition the
si(J service stand on the out-
j .®^ill serve sandwiches, cold
7s, and beer.
T}i I
^ new management of the|
ij *^0 Club plans to hold regular*
L^s each Saturday night during)
and beginning July 1st the'
pl^'ar Beach Club orchestra will
Jjj nightly. Week nights during
St ® the Club will provide a con-
f J't supply of nickleodean music,
po "'hic.h a straight admission
of twenty-five cents will be
rrged.
faring the daytime the bath
u nses will be open, and in addition
;),®^ shuffle boards in front of the
p^''. as well as a new board on the
jj®P deck, will be available for use.
ifili^Poop deck has been recovered
5 h Canvas, and provided with a
hghting system. An innova-
■j ^ this year will be the introduc-
of a new type of bowling
known as miniature bowling.
Bfn • ®'Onsisting of a machine that
)p,'''des the balls, sets up the pins,
^ keeps score all by itself.
, Managers Vick and Fields say
. are making every effort to
o^ide the kind of entertainment
’ ^t best pleases their customers.
L. Vick hails from Virginia,
j.hhas spent considerable time
jj'^^^'g the past few years in Flor-
, A bachelor, he is a hard-
1 '"king, yet humorous sort of fel-
who seems to be able to get
with people from all walks of
u This is his first summer on
. ® Hare County Beaches, and he
[^•’is to be pleased with prospects
the coming months. He will
’’sotially supervise the actual
®ning mechanism of the club,
u.feeler Fields is well known in
, Section, and served several
tillers ago as assistant manager
Beach Club. He has spent
tsiderable time in Dare County,
If® knows and is known by about
j tany folks as anyone around
His part of the managerial
“’’k this summer will be taken up
j,?*tly with making contacts, han-
publicity, and arranging for
'am ashore from
IP loaded with
:iCK
I That’s How Beasley Family
^ags Head Got Started
'harlie Beasley of Collingbon,
* is a brother of Mrs. John Wise
kirs. John Toler of Nags Head,
* how his relatives came to this
%. He says his grandfather,
®niy Beasley, was sailing before
mast on a small schooner load- j
Mth brick, in a light northwest j
d, and hound down the coast ^
fhy. The vessel sprung a leak,
the men at the pumps couldn’t
P it free. So his father on ask-
the Captain if he was going to
ch the vessel and try to save all
ds, received a negative answer,
atnmy Beasley, so the legend
s, watched until tPe vessel came
6st to shore, jumped overboard
swam to the beach near Chica- ^
omico. Neither vessel nor crew |
' heard from since. He came to ,
moke Island, went to work with
mn named Ashby who lived just
th of Manteo, and who was a
"dfather S. A. and W. J.
ffin of Manteo. He married a
man named Gallop. Mr. Ashby,
the birth of their first child,
m them an acre of land. The
d proved to be Aunt Mave
“me, the mother of John Moore,
cnown' local character who saw
rst airplane flight.
ALVA WISE HOLLOWELL, wife
of Graham Hollowell, Jr., and
daughter-in-law of the Nags Head
postmaster. Mrs. Hollowell is a
native of Nags Head, and is just
proof of the contention that local
girls are as pretty as any of the
visiting belles.
FRED HOWARD TO
WRITE FOR NEWS
Lost Colony Indian Dancer’s
Column Will Appear Soon
Fred Howard, talented Indian
dancer and associate director of
the Lost Colony drama will write
special columns for this paper at
intervals duringThe summer.
This year h'red will be taking the
featured part of Uppowoc, the
Medicine Man, for the third consec
utive year, and will again serve in
the canacity of associate director
of Paul Green’s symphonic drama.
His column in this paper will deal
with the cast and the production of
the play, and will contain interest
ing personal items and notes that
are not ordinarily printed. He is
an experienced newspaper man,
(Please turn to Page Two)
COLLECT GARBAGE
3 TIMES WEEKLY
Cottagers Are Asked to Put
Refuse in Proper Con
tainers
If you see a nice looking, medium
sized, mustached fella snooping
around the garbage pile behind
your cottage, you’d better run tell
the cook to bury the swill from
now on. The man is liable co be
County Health Officer Morgan, and '
in all probability he’ll be conduct-1
ing one of his garbage dump in
vestigations that reveals to him
which cottagers are dumping their
garbage and trash unlawfully, and
are therefore liable for severe
prosecution. j
Mr. Morgan informed a repre
sentative of this paper yesterday,
that garbage and trash is being col-1
lected each Monday, Wednesday
and Friday, along the 14 miles of
developed Dare County Beaches,'
and that daily collections will be
begun as soon as the amount of
trash and garbage becomes large
enough to warrant more frequent
pick ups. j
Cottagers and business men who
have garbage and trash that they
wish to dispose of should leave
their perishable refuse in a proper
ly covered garbage can by the side
of the Virginia Dare Trail. Any
trash they might wish to have car
ried away, must be placed in con
tainers that will' keep the trash
from being blown about. :
Beach tenants are earnestly re
quested to cooperate in this gar-'
bage collection business. Besides
the potential sanitary nuisance that
ill-disposed garbage creates, it
also makes for an unsightly land- j
scape. It is far easier to take the
garbage to the highway in proper
containers so that it may be dis
posed of in a satisfactory manner
than it is to set it out along the
way in flimsy, paper boxes that
each breeze can play havoc with, j
In the event that the garbage is
not placed out in time for collec
tion, and the cottager wishes to
dispose of it immediately, by bury
ing, Mr. Morgan still has a say in
the matter. Garbage must be pur
led at least 12 inches below the sur
face. It must be buried at least
60 feet on either the north or south
side of the cottage water supply,
since the underground water table
flows east and west with the ocean
tides. Persons violating these
rules will be prosecuted to the full
extent of the law.
THE ACE
I
Grass, Flowers, Trees Grow Well
On Beach Since Cattle Removed
TIDEWATER VIRGINIA IS SCENE
OF BEACH CLUBBERS WILD CHASE
Managers Vick and Fields Have Run in With a
Norfolk Police Officer
Here’s a cut of Asa Toler, who’s
been around here for so long that
his name is sort of symbolic of the
section. No further explanation is
necessary, except that Asa is
standing in front of L. S. Parker-
son’s strawberry barrel which has
caused so mu^h comment in this,
section lately. A little over a year)
ago Mr. Parkerson decided to grow
some strawberries on the beach, so j
he filled a barrel with| dirt, bored,
holes through the oufeide, stuck
strawberry plants in tl^ holes, and
fertilized and watered the plants at
regular intervals during the year.
The result was a banner crop of
excellent tasting strawberries, and
something else for Mr. and Mrs.
Parkerson to be justly proud of.
MANTEO’S OLDEST
MERCHANT^SEES
TOWN FROM AIR
OREGON INLET AND NAGS HEAD GET
HIGH PRAISE FROM PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Men Attest to Fishing Thrills on Carolina
Coast and Bear Witness to Parkerson’s Splendid Hotel
From the Homestead (Pa.) Messenger
By BERT F. KLINE
If you have no love for dangling
a fishing line over the side of a boat
just pass up these words and you
will not have missed much.
If there is pleasure for you in
the art of angling then you’ll get a
world of information on the subject
in this column—especially on the
art of salt water angling.
I’ve made a number of trips to
Manteo, Nags Head and Wanchese
—all in North Carolina and on the
coast and each time I have been ac
companied by from one to half a
dozen local men.
In all the trips we have made
only once were we “skunked” and
there was a reason for that. We
bumped into a northeaster and the
less you see of a northeastern the
better off you are.
Nags Head, N. C., is on the coast
and near to the island on which
are Manteo and Wanchese. Nags
Head furnishes the best hotel ac
commodations and the other two
communities give you the fishing
guides and boats.
Haven of Channel Bass
The waters of Oregon Inlet and
those adjacent ,are famous for
sport fishing and the most enjoy
able of this fishing is for the large
bass or drum. From March 23 un
til June 15 fishing for the channel
bass is ideal. Then there is ,a lull
and until July 16th there isn’t any
good reason to go after the fighting
denizens of the deep.
But from the middle of July un
til November the channel bass run
again and the fishing is plenty
good.
I’ve trolled for channel bass and
cast for them but until my last trip
down I never realized they could
be caught still fishing. But our
PARKERSON’S PRAISED
BY PENNSY PAPER
L. S. PARKERSON, proprietor of
the popular Nags Head Hotel of
that name wins high praise this
week in the Homestead, Pa., Daily
Messenger, a large suburban paper
of Pittsburgh. Mr. Kline, the pub
lisher, his son and his friends often
come to Dare County, and have
made two trips this season. His re
cent experience on the beach and at
Oregon Inlet is published elsewhere
in this newspaj)er.
best catch was made in this man
ner. We went out with Captain
Sam Tillett immediately after a
northeastern and the waves were
too .high to venture into the outside
(Please turn to Page Two)
R. C. Evans at 81 Not
Averse to Flying High
These Days
Manteo’s oldest merchant. Rich
ard C. Evans, caught his wife tak
ing a Sunday afternoon nap, and
slipped off to the airport with Sher- j
iff Victor Meekins, and did some- j
thing he hadn’t done in 20 years..
He took another trip in an airplane,
and looked at the town .he first saw
in' 1881 when ne came to Roanoke
Island. The town then had barely
three houses; today it has hundreds
of them.
Mr. Evans at 81 is an exception-
j ally active man. In 60 years of ac
tive business life in Manteo, he has
held ,his own with the best of them,
and watched many young men go
by the board. He still gives his
own mercantile business his person
al attention all day long.
Viewing Manteo from a height of
one thousand feet, he said: “It is
a better looking town than one
might think. I recall how when I
came, I bought my store and land
I for $880. The piece of ground ex-
i tending all the way from my store,
’ to the store now occupied by
Owens’ Grocery, was supposed to
go with it, but W. T. Brinkley
bought it of the heirs who owned it,
for $40.”
j The property referred to, now
contains the Carson Davis store,
the Fisheries Plant, freight house
and other buildings, and has been
sold during the past few years for
many thousands of dollars.
Mr. Evans looking over at Nags
Head, recalled when he came to the
county, a dozen houses would have
embraced all the cottages on the
beach. Today there are more than
300 buildings on the Dare County
beaches.. Land that might have
been purchased then in its entirety
for a bare thousand cash, today has
a taxable valuation of a half mil
lion dollars.
“And yet withal,” Mr. Evans
meditated, “mankind has about de
stroyed all the fish and game there
is, losing more in a sense, than he
has ever gained in a material way.’’
Mr. Evans was much impressed
with the skill and care of Pilot
Dave Driskill, whose red monoplane
has recently been overhauled and
provided with a new motor. Sun
day was a good day at the airport,
and many tourists came by to see
the beaches from the air.
Co-managers O. L. Vick and
Wheeler Fields of the Nags Head
Beach Club went up to Norfolk
Monday morning for an important
conference concerning the opening
of the Club this Saturday night.
They were supposed to rneet a
Norfolk man in his office at 8
o’clock in the morning, and accord
ingly they set out from the beach
before 6 a. m.
They arrived with over half an
hour to spare, and were idling away
the time in the gentleman’s front
office when his secretary made in
quiries concerning their visit.
So Fields explained the reason
for his presence there at such an
early hour, and was immediately in
formed that the gentleman they
had come to see was going to the
western part of the state that
morning to see a cousin, or a niece,
or a daughter, receive her college
diploma.
The two enterprising business
men were stymied. They glared at.
each other for too many seconds to
count, and were finally proceeding
to remove themselves from that im
mediate vicinity, when Wheeler
suddenly released a sound closely
akin to an Indian warwhoop, and
bounded back into the office again,
A minute later the two were in
Vick’s car and driving like mad in
the general direction of the west
bound ferry, on which their man
was scheduled to leave at 8 o’clock
or exactly nineteen minutes from
that time. The ferry do.ck was over
nine miles distant; the early morn
ing workers rush was at its height
and the road was narrow and wind
ing, but that didn’t stop demon
driver Vick. Nothing could stop
demon driver Vick, or so Fields told
us; but that was before the cop
showed up. He was riding a nice
shiny looking motorcycle, and mak
ing a lot of racket with his siren.
So Vick stopped.
It turned out that the cop was
far from the pleasant sort. He
seemed to be griped over the fact
that Vick was taking corners on
two wheels, and at the same time
hanging up some sort of a track
record. Fields said he thought he
was jealous, but he asked us not
to print that. So we drew a circle
around that line, and made a nota
tion for linotype operator Chesnut
not to set it up. But looking over
the proof, it seems that we must’ve
put that on the wrong piece of
paper. So the only thing to do now
is to ask Mr. Aiken—he’s the print
er—to yank tiiat part of the story
before he puts the paper to bed. If
we forget to tell Mr. Aiken, the line
will come out in this week’s paper,
and then both Fields and the c'
will be down on us. Note—We for
got to tell Mr. Aiken.
But getting back to the story.
Vick and the cop had quite an argu
ment. Vick said the cop was wast
ing his valuable time, and the cop
asked a lot of questions about
Vick’s age, etc. Fields tells us
Vick said he was 91, but he asked j
us not to print that either, so if wc
remember to tell Mr. Chesnut or
Mr. Aiken, maybe we can manage
to have it left out. The cop finally
got the best end of the bargain,
and Vick to.ok his leave with a
court summons added to the articles
. in his wallet.
We’ll cut the story short here.
Vick and Fields finally reached the
ferry. They parked their car near
the entrance, and since the gang
plank was even then being pulled
up, they jumped on board, in order
j to make sure of seeing their man.
These were serious business men.
I They had argued with stenograph-
' ers, driven like mad man, had it out
with oops, and finally ended up
with a court summons. But they
were at the ferry, and they didnt
plan to let their man get away
again. So the ferry started its trip
across the bay and Fields and Vick
, stood jn the stem, waiting to re
gain their breath before encounter
ing their man. And down on the
dock a car pulled up beside theirs,
(Please turn to Page Two)
DARE SHERIFF DOES A COLUMN
FOR THE SEASHORE NEWS
Nowand Then is Syndicated in Eastern Carolina
Weeklies
Mrs. Flora McMullan and Phylis
McMullan have been on the beach
on and off for the last four or five
weeks. After sticking to the old
style driveway for upwards of eight
or ten years they’ve finally become
convinced that the new sand cover- j
ed kind is more practical and ser
viceable, so they’ve been personally
supervising work on a new one.
Did you ever see a parent or oth
er loved one dying slowly before
your eyes ? Did you ever watch him
month after month suffer bitter
agony, and truly, nobly and uncom
plainingly be*ar his cross in stoic
silence? Did you ever sit and try
to hold back' the tears as you
watched the tender, loving, patient
friend of childhood, to whom you
could take all your troubles, a mck
of strength to lean upon in times
of joy and stress, lean back and
with a weary sigh welcome death
and close his tired eyes forever?
Few people ever see their parents
die under such circumstances. Most
old men of the coastland live so
long that they have seen all their
dreams come true and depart in
peace like one who, at the end of a
long day’s work, gathers his family
about him for the evening benisons
■and surrenders gratefully to peace
ful slumber.
I,ike many others I watched my
father die the hard way; that is, I
saw him finally die, but most of the
time I was away from home trying
to get bread and meat for the fam
ily for whom he had struggled
valiantly. 'When most men today
would be called young, he was
caught with a cancer.
Many who read this have watch
ed some loved one die of cancer.
They have watched the misery of
one so dear who was enduring the
bitter gnawing of the demon. And
where is one among you who would
not grant any drug entrusted to
his keeping, to ease the last long
painful mile ofThe way to one who
suffered so ?
These thoughts crossed my mind
the other day when I read in the
paper where Dr. Howard J. Combs
of Elizabeth City had been arrested
. Our guest writer this week is
Sheriff D. Victor Meekins of Man
teo, whose Now and Then column
is syndicated in a number of east
ern North Carolina weekly news
papers.
by Federal agents and charged with
the illegal prescribing of dope. It
was a sensational affair, and other
doctors were soion to be, and have
recently been involved in the same
charges. It was most amazing.
Here in the sunny southland, and in
the Carolina Coastland, we do not
have gangsters and rings who pan
der to the vices and the unnatural
appetites of otherwise normal hu
man beings. We do have honor
able Christian gentlemen, full of
(Please turn to Page Two)
Camp Boys Have Planted
Many Acres With Grass;
Bushes and Flowers Come
Up of Own Accord
Dare County is being re-born.
Where only a year or two ago the
eye was greeted with vast stretches
of bare sand and coarse beach
grass, updn which herds of stunted
cattle eked out a miserable exist-
ance, today is springing into life
lush vegetation, acres of wild
flowers and trees and flowering
shrubs of a hundred varieties. Not
only are tremendous changes tak
ing place, considered from the
aesthetic angle, but with it is com
ing a general movement, which
will ultimately mean the restora
tion of our barrier “Banks” to a
physical condition comparable to
what existed before this nation
came into being.
This remarkable and far flung
process of rejuvenation is taking
place on Dare County’s coastland,
primarily as the result of an act
passed during the closing days of
the 1937 session of our State legis
lature. This act, generally referred
to as the Stock Law, was visualized
and brought into reality chiefly
through the efforts of one local
citizen, aided and abetted by our
representatives in Raleigh and by
R. Bruce Etheridge, then as now
director of the Department of Con
servation and Development.
In the elimination of the herds
of cattle and half wild beach ponies
and scuttling flocks of mangy
sheep, something of interest to the
visitor has been lost, certainly, and
some small income to their owners
vanished, but that it has been gen
erally for the public good there is
no question. Indeed, results are-
shown to have been far reaching
even today and the future will paint
a clearer and more deflnite picture.
From its very inception the act had
the strong support of many state
and federal agencies and bureaus,
and the National Park Service, in
particular, stressed the fact that
unless the stock were removed from
un-fenced territories, all efforts
toward beach restoration on their
part would be halted. This was a
powerful factor when the bill fin
ally came up for vote.
We have recently traveled over
a considerable portion of the
“Banks” from a point well north
of the Wright Memorial Bridge to
Cape Hatteras and during this pil
grimage visual proof was offered
on every hand of material benefits
which have accrued since the*'
Stock Law came into being. Where
once was a barren waste, desert
like in its aspect, relieved only by
scattered clumps of close cropped
beach grass, there appears today
luxuriant meadows, in some places
acres of wild flowers and flowering
shrubs, interspersed with many
varieties of trees indigenous to this'
section. Most of the latter are the
rseult of natural seeding and germ
ination, though in places is noted
the result of artificial cultivation
by employees of the WPA and CCC
camps. Particularly noticeable in
this latter respect is the develop
ment of strict sand fixation grasses.
In the main, however, we may
’ credit this changing of a territory
that was fast taking on the arid
aspects of a desert, into the verita
ble paradise of verdure described
by the early English colonists, upon
elimination of grazing animals.
Those who are versed in early
colonial history, will remember
statements made by members of
the Raleigh expeditions. It was
the historian of the first fleet of
discovery under the staunch cap
tains Amadas and Barlow, who re
marked upon approaching the coast
and even before land was diseern-
able, that “we smelled so sweet and
strong a smell as if we had been in
the midst of some delicate garden
abounding with all kinds of odife-
rous flowers.” Later this same re-
counteur dwelt upon the beauty and
the majesty of the vegetation and
forests of the more northern areas,
“bettering” according to .him, the
“woods of the Azores and of the
Indies,” the highest and reddest
cedars of the world.” This histor-
ion and those who followed; Harlot,
John 'White, Ralph Lane and oth
ers, aulogized upon the luxurience
of the vegetation. They wrote with
i (Please turn to page two)
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