Nags Head, North Carolina

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Historians believe that Nags Head made its first appearance on Outer Banks maps in the 1730's.  The name probably came from English sailors who reused the name of a popular shore side retreat at home.  A more colorful, but less likely, explanation is that land pirates tied lanterns around the necks of their horses-the "nags"-to lure ships onto the beach.

By the 1830's, wealthy farmers from the coastal plain were bringing their families, their household help and, as often as not, their livestock to the beach each year during the hot, humid months.  They came to escape the summer "vapors"-a condition that lumped heat, humidity and ill-humor together with epidemic fevers and disease-and to take their cure in the sea breeze and salt water.

Visitors from the mainland arrived from Elizabeth City and other Albemarle ports by boat at the soundside village where most had built summer homes.  Building on the oceanfront where storms and winter tides had the run of the beach was considered unwise.  Horse-drawn carts and, eventually, a short rail line, took visitors to the beach where "bathing" required full dress and suntans were socially unacceptable.

It wasn't until after the Civil War, probably around 1870, that homes were built on the oceanfront here.  Soundside hotels thrived until well into the 1920's when, with society loosening up, folks frolicked in the surf in scandalous bathing suits and demanded daring oceanfront accommodations.

Today, the swimwear of the Twenties seems comically modest; few vacationers can leave their homes and jobs behind for an entire summer; and the town is no longer a small soundside village separated from its oceanfront cottages by vast tracts of empty sand and maritime forest.

But water, sand and sun still define Nags Head and the town takes its role as a seaside resort seriously.  Nags Head provides excellent public access to both the Roanoke Sound and the ocean.  The town's centerpiece, Jockey's Ridge, the largest natural sand dune on the East Coast, is the second most-visited site in the North Carolina state park system.  Other outdoor and indoor recreation opportunities abound, along with numerous art galleries, dozens of shops and some of the area's best restaurants and inns.

Municipal Complex
5401 S. Croatan Hwy
PO Box 99
Nags Head, NC 27959
(252) 441-5508
www.townofnagshead.net