Chronicles of the Outer Banks by Sarah Downing

Author:Sarah Downing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Keeping Visitors on Course from Whalebone Junction to the Whalehead Club

What milepost?” They’re usually the first two words upon any visitor’s lips when seeking a dining establishment, beach access—even their own rental home. But finding your way along the Outer Banks wasn’t always as simple as counting numbers on the side of the bypass. In fact, in the earliest days of tourism, little green signs weren’t even necessary. Then again, neither were directions.

The Outer Banks’ role as a resort destination predates the Civil War, when the well-to-do from the Albemarle region traveled by steamer or private vessel to Nags Head’s sound side. The late unpleasantness postponed the tradition during the 1860s, but by 1870, eastern North Carolina upper-crusters were again summering in hotels and cottages that grew in the shadow of Jockey’s Ridge. The first out-of-state visitors were mostly sportsmen, who hunkered down in hunting lodges to take advantage of the fine waterfowl available in winter months. And when the Wright brothers made Kitty Hawk famous in 1903—and again in 1908 and 1911—news-hungry journalists from around the country rented rooms in Manteo. In every case, they all came for a reason, with little chance to wander, and no way to get lost.

All that changed in the 1930s as bridges and roads finally allowed curious travelers to visit by automobile. After World War II, the businesses sprouting up along the Beach Road were eager to tout their locale to a new surge in curious vacationers. But that was not so easy on a strip of sand with few identifying features by which to navigate.

“Since there are no regular cross streets along the Dare beaches,” explained Oscar Sanderlin, who chaired a special committee of the Dare Beaches Chamber of Commerce in 1950, “it is very difficult for strangers to find hotels or locate specific cottages.”

Sanderlin’s committee decided to erect signs every mile along the Beach Road, known then as Virginia Dare Trail—at the time the only north–south thoroughfare.

“These mile posts will serve as a substitute for street signs,” continued Sanderlin, “so that residents as well as visitors can more easily find their way around.”

Thus, an Outer Banks institution was born—the milepost marker.

According to late Outer Banks historian David Stick, the special committee “arranged for the Chamber to pay for the construction of twenty signs, each one containing the letters ‘M.P.’ and the mile number on both sides.” At first, the signs were posted between only the Wright Memorial Bridge and the Roanoke Sound Bridge. They were installed by state highway workers in time for the 1950 summer season and featured “reflectorized material to make them visible at night.”

Over coming years, businesses used the new signs in advertisements, directing visitors to their stores, motels and restaurants—occasionally even moving the markers closer to make their businesses easier to find. Nevertheless, the system worked well enough—until 1980, when new, larger signs began to replace the original mile markers along the Beach Road and to populate the newer 158 Bypass.

Suddenly, more than a few

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