1950's OBX Picture | OBX Connection Message Board (2024)

Date Posted: 12/8/2018 6:14 PM

Does anyone else have old photos like this? I would love to see them.

Cheers,
Will

Date Posted: 12/8/2018 6:39 PM

Date Posted: 12/8/2018 9:25 PM

Date Posted: 12/8/2018 10:54 PM

One of these days I need to dig out my box of early/mid '80s Outer Banks pictures and memorabilia. It looked like a completely different place even 35 years ago.

Thanks for sharing!

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 2:35 AM

Click to follow link...

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 5:51 AM

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 6:46 AM

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 9:03 AM

Hey Will! Here is a link to the Outer Banks History Center's album on early aerial pics of the area. Great pics there.

Click to follow link...

Awesome. Thank you for the link.

Cheers,
Will

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 9:27 AM

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 9:46 AM

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 11:58 AM

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 12:13 PM

Date Posted: 12/9/2018 5:32 PM

I'm not sure of the exact year that 158 was opened, but I think it was sometime in the early to mid 1960s. When the highway came, development followed. Although much of it has been re-developed over the last 10-15 years, there's still some older development along 158 that dates from the '60s through the '80s.

Date Posted: 12/10/2018 4:18 PM

I know there wasn't much west of NC-12 in Nags Head back then other than the odd house or two here and there. I've read there were a couple of soundside resorts in the late 19th Century, though I'm not sure when they closed or exactly where they were.

I'm not sure of the exact year that 158 was opened, but I think it was sometime in the early to mid 1960s. When the highway came, development followed. Although much of it has been re-developed over the last 10-15 years, there's still some older development along 158 that dates from the '60s through the '80s.

According to this source ( Click to follow link... ) -

[B]"In 1960, US 158 received its current routing in Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, and Kitty Hawk, leaving behind US 158 Business (now NC 12)."[/B]

That is earlier than I thought.

Cheers,
Will

Date Posted: 12/19/2018 6:55 PM

Date Posted: 12/19/2018 8:11 PM

I know there wasn't much west of NC-12 in Nags Head back then other than the odd house or two here and there. I've read there were a couple of soundside resorts in the late 19th Century, though I'm not sure when they closed or exactly where they were.

I'm not sure of the exact year that 158 was opened, but I think it was sometime in the early to mid 1960s. When the highway came, development followed. Although much of it has been re-developed over the last 10-15 years, there's still some older development along 158 that dates from the '60s through the '80s.

Soundside in Old Nags Head Cove has always been a neighborhood, and I’m pretty sure that’s the location of the “resorts” you referred to? It was more like a ferry landing I believe. Around the Stinson Ranch on stilts over the water...

Most of the locals and natives live/lived on the soundside up and down the beach. It was the “summer” cottages that were built on the ocean. Manteo, Colington, KH, Wanchese, Hatteras Village come to mind. The watermen keep their boats on the soundside, not the ocean.

Date Posted: 12/19/2018 9:56 PM

Soundside in Old Nags Head Cove has always been a neighborhood, and I’m pretty sure that’s the location of the “resorts” you referred to? It was more like a ferry landing I believe. Around the Stinson Ranch on stilts over the water...

Most of the locals and natives live/lived on the soundside up and down the beach. It was the “summer” cottages that were built on the ocean. Manteo, Colington, KH, Wanchese, Hatteras Village come to mind. The watermen keep their boats on the soundside, not the ocean.

I know one of them was supposed to have been very close to Jockey's Ridge, so at or near Old Nags Head Cove would make sense. The definition of a resort in the 1800s was much different from today's idea. I would picture a 19th Century resort on the Outer Banks being more like a rustic lodge than what was seen in the states farther north at that time.

It seems that the oceanfront didn't get "discovered" as a site for hotels until the 1930s. I believe the First Colony Inn and the old Wilbur Wright Hotel opened in the '30s, followed by the Carolinan in '46 (though the architecture made the building look more like a 1920s hotel), and the Orville Wright and the Sea Foam in the late '40s to name a few.

Construction on US 158 may have started in 1960, but I seem to remember a couple of people years ago telling me that it wasn't finished until around 1963-64 and that it and the original Bonner bridge opened within a short time of each other. I wasn't there, so I can't personally say.

Date Posted: 12/22/2018 6:01 PM