Prior to 1932 the area of Kill Devil Hills was only accessible, with a car, by driving the beach at low tide or following primitive trails along the sound front through juniper and pine wooded areas. The means of travel on the land were with horse and foot. Access from the mainland and surrounding islands was by boat only.
In the early 1830's wealthy planters from surrounding counties like Perquimans, Chowan and Bertie began to summer at the beach. The southern area, Nags Head, just across the sound from Manteo, was the first cluster of established shacks. There had been a few permanent white families living on the Roanoke Sound side of the island since late 1700's. These families grew small vegetable gardens and fished for there existence. One or two room shacks were built from hand sawed juniper and oak groves. Occasionally scavenged wood from shipwrecks would provide much needed siding or decking for these simple dwellings.
The mid and late 1800's more homes began to be built for vacationing only. By 1885 there were 15 or so cottages on the ocean side in Nags Head. Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hill remained sound front communities.
In 1921 the North Carolina Legislature past a 50 million dollar bond issue, funded by automobile and gas taxes, that cleared the way for state wide road development. The objective was to have all North Carolina 100 county seats, principal towns and cities, state parks and state institutions and highway systems of neighboring states to be connected. The completed system would complete and maintain a 5,500-mile system of primary roads.
In 1928-1930 all of the region from Nags Head to Kitty Hawk began a 'Renaissance' of sorts. Almost overnight it seems, people from surrounding states as well as far away places began seeing this area for its historic and natural beauty. Numerous important developments began opening this region to the world. In 1928 national attention was on Big Kill Devil Hill for the dedication of the first monument and plaque marking the site of the first powered flight. By 1932 a sixty-one foot Mt. Airy granite monument was completed on top of Big Kill Devil Hill along with a 314 acre surrounding park to celebrate the historic 1903 flight by Wilbur and Orville Wright. The U.S. Corps. of Engineers built a field research station facility nearby around 1933. By 1932, NC12 was completed. This was the 'missing link' of sorts. Now a 18-mile loop road connected an earlier causeway from Manteo to the oceanfront on the South end to the Wright Memorial Bridge on the North end. Between 1925-30 Thomas A. Baum of the Newport -Norfork Ferry Corp. began hourly ferry service from Manteo to Kill Devil Hills area. From 1933-1942 saw the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) formed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs to aid relief of high unemployment from the Great Depression and secondly, carry out a broad natural resource conservation program on national, sate and municipal lands. The CCC began building sand dunes along the Outer Banks to aid in erosion control. The National Park Service and the CCC began maintaining the road to lighthouses along NC12 and providing seasonal tours of the parks lands. This was a precursor for the 1950 First National Seashore Park of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore designation.
It was around 1932 that Frank Stick, a national known artist of outdoor-themed paintings, sold the oceanfront property to Bernie and Russell "Skipper" Griggs from Church's Island. Frank had moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1929. During this time, he was a driving force behind the creation of Roanoke Island National Park, the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk, and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area.
The property was just a short distance to where the Wright Brother's Memorial stands. The Griggs also owned a hunting lodge on Church's Island called the Hampton Lodge. The Croatan Inn was open from June to September for beach vacationers and the Hampton Lodge in the wintertime for the wonderful bird hunting expeditions. The property was picked for its central location to the newly completed NC12 as about half way from Nags Head to Kitty Hawk at milepost 7.5. The schooner Irma shipwrecked on the beach in Kill Devil Hills in 1929; the Croatan Inn was built just behind the wreck site four years later. The inn's guest enjoyed parties on the aft deck of the Irma nightly in the summer months.
What I have found thus far shows the original inn with 15 bedrooms, an ocean front dining room on the first floor, with lots of large windows looking over a very wide beach, there was also terrace dining, a central large fireplace in the "club-like" lounge, a large screened porch was built to the South and a huge sun deck for social hours in the cool evenings. The vernacular of the inn was like that of the 7 life saving stations dotted along the coast of North Carolina. Typical design was a two-storey with tower, with gabled roof and cedar shake siding and roofing. The vernacular became known as the shingle style. Like some of the 'unpainted aristocracy' cottages of Nags Head, the inn had a large front porch with entrances to both central dining rooms as well as entrances into the lounge/living room and bedrooms. All of the windows had wooden 'awning' shutters that could be closed in the event of a heavy storm. The shutters also served as shade protection for the guest bedrooms throughout the inn.
The Croatan Inn was one of the first to be built North of Nags Head on the completion of NC12 and the beach road. As I research I continue to find information that shows that the Croatan Inn guests were truly the 'movers and the shakers' of the development of the Outer Banks. Like the Holly Inn of Pinehurst in the economic development of the Sand Hills region of North Carolina, so was the Croatan Inn to the Outer Banks. Numerous political, economic and cultural individuals are known to have stayed here-often. The guests whether from Washington DC, Elizabeth City or many other cities and countries felt so comfortable here that they took off their shoes first thing when they arrived, and did not put them on again until it was time to head home.
The 1930's, just as the 1830's was truly a renaissance awakening for Kill Devil Hill and the surrounding Outer Banks villages. I will continue researching this wonderful inn's history, which included wonderful food and music, German U-Boat seamen and an original Outer Banks coastal cottage adventure.
Please if you have any memories of this place - photos, stories, legends, people - please post them.
Thank You
Christian Austell
Christian Austell
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