Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / Sept. 3, 1987, edition 1 / Page 66
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Poge 30 Supplement to The Brunswick Beocon. Seplember-October. 1987 Sunset Beach This island was purchased in 1955 by Mannon Gore, whose family still owns considerable property in Sunset Beach. In 1961, he constructed the pontoon bridge that still serves the community, the only one of its kind on the eastern seaboard. A water system was installed in 1980. The tov/n has a population of 191 and 1,076 housing units. Sunset Beach Information Town Hall 579-6297 Town Administrator Undo Fluegel Mayor, Jim Gordon 57M625 Building Inspector i^rry Crim Council Members: Ed Gore Sr., Mayor pro tern Minnie Hunt Mary Gnffith Donald Safrit Police Chief, William Hill 579-2151 Fire Chief, Carson Todd S42-9H9 Nearest Volunteer Rescue Squads: Calabash Squad 579-7474 ShalloUe Squad 7544666 Sunset Beach Regulations The town of Sunset Beach prohibits, within the city limits: •Fireworks: •Discharge of firearms; •Public drunkenness; •Charcoal fires in rental units without written permission of the owners; •Elxcessive noise; While visiting Sunset Beach, please DO: •Obey pasted speed limits, 30 miles per hour; •Keep dogs on a leash or fenced; •Clean up litter you have dropped on beach or streets. 'TOfC r* IA KIT I17VKTOU 1 ^1. L . . staff PHOTO BY MARJORIE MEGIVERN iHlJs GIANT WINCH is the mechanism that swings open the Sunset Beach bridge, allowing water traffic to proceed down the Intracoastal Waterway. Sunset Beach Is Home Of A Vanishing Species BY MARJORIE MEGIVERN A man in grease-stained work clothes sits at a desk in a tiny frame house and gazes out the window. A stream of cars pass before his win dow going in one direction, then in the other. Flowing under the little house is the Intracoastal Waterway, w’here, suddenly the outline of a yacht can be seen in the distance. Watching carefully, the man waits till the vessel comes a little closer, then he rises and steps to a nearby panel of buttons, yellow, green, red and black. He presses two of these and red-and-white wooden barriers on either side of his house descend to block the flow of traffic. As cars halt on both .sides, the man hurries down a winding steel stair case to the barge on which the house rests and mounts a huge orange con traption, resembling a tractor. As he shifts its gears, cables grind noisily and the barge swings out into the middle of the waterway, leaving a passageway for the yacht. When it has passed, he shifts again and the barge returns to its former position, linking the Sunset Beach mainland to its island community. This flotation swing bridge is near ly extinct. Robert Cox of the bridge division of the N.C. Department of Transportation said there’s not another like it on the eastern seaboard. relic of the past with a concrete high- rise bridge by 1990. It was a marvel back in 1957-58 when Mannon C. Gore, who owned the island, built it, then operated it for three-and-a-half years. His son, Ed Gore, a Sunset Beach developer and member of the town council, said his father opened and closed the bridge daily till midnight. ‘‘After that, if there was an emergen cy, residents could call on him to open it at any hour,” Gore said. In 1961 Mannon Gore turned over the bridge to the state DOT, which has maintained it ever since. “We replaced it with a new one in ’61,” Cox said, “and again in 1974 and in 1983. 'fhis is the fourth bridge at Sunset Beach.” According to Cox, Gore sank his original bridge near the Sunset Beach pier as an artificial reef. Sunset Beach was, for a long time, the best-kept secret of the South Brunswick Islands, retaining its natural, family-oriented charm, with a minimum of commercialism and a small population. That is changing now, and a spurt in tourism has made the quaint flota tion bridge “a bottleneck to vehicular and marine traffic,” according to Ed Gore. “It has to open frequently for small boats,” he said, “and that slows the flow of cars that want to come and go onto the island.” In response, a resolution by the past town administration called for replacement of the bridge by ‘‘whatever the state deemed necessary,” which Gore said will be the high-rise, ’oecause it’s the least expensive. “Our high-rise will be different from the others,” he added, “because we’ve asked for a bike path to be incorporated into the design, so the rails will be liigher.” He expects a “spectacular view” from the new bridge, because 4,000 feet of marsh lies between the mainland and the island homes. “You won’t just see rooftops,” he said. The DOT is acquiring rights-of-way for the project now, and construction is scheduled for 1989-90. Soon there will be no little house wiin its panel of buttons and machinery for swinging it out into the waterway. There wiU be no bridge tender to make that trip downstairs about 30 times every day. The boats, that now number more than 50 daily, will skim right under a concrete structure that will permit an unrestrained flow of cars back and forth from the beach. Everything will be easier and vehicles can move faster, but a sliver of the past that is charming and per sonal will be gone. The sights and sounds and smell of the Atlantic Ocean are coveted treasures, and they have been worth the price of a few minutes spent waiting in the car, watching the unhurried movement of a barge as it swings gracefully aside, welcoming fishing boats and yachts to the other side of the bridge. That’s a ceremony that will be missed in the headlong dash over the concrete. ©1987 THE BRUNSWICK BEACON And, following the examples of Holden and Ocean Isle Beach, Sunset is in the process of replacing this AT SEASIDE BRING HOME THEiBEACON On Sale At BIG NELL'S PIT STOP OASIS MART Journey to ADVENTURE ALL TRAVEL AfiERCT SERVICE FREE We Sell llrtiM Tiokih'lat TMn*6nritM«lM-Trak PLAMNED GROUP TOURS FRIERDLT COURTEOUS SERVICE CONVENIENT TOURS AND TRAVEL Resort Plo20 (Upstoirs) Shollotte ^ 754-4223 754 4222 Near Sunset Beach lots of extras, lavishly landscaped. Call today! ^ nights & WKKKKNDS; ^7S Traders VlllaRe. Calahaiih rhnno (9I9IS79-.3463 Pnti !x*« e!!yn. Broker Mary Allen, Broker 579.957n or .S794IM;i
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 3, 1987, edition 1
66
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