On a recent ferry ride back home to Ocracoke after a trip “up the beach” to Nags Head, my daughter Amy, our friend Jenifer Kidwell, Lachlan, and I were relaxing and catching up on some reading. Jen was reading Carl Goerch’s 1956 book, Ocracoke. In one chapter Goerch lists twenty-eight things “you won’t find on Ocracoke.” Here is the list:
- Policeman
- Traffic light
- Elevator
- Pool hall
- Brick building
- Chain store
- Hospital
- Parking meters
- Golf course
- Lawyer
- Doctor
- Furniture Store
- Drug Store
- Printer
- Florist
- Billboard
- Sidewalk
- Bakery
- Bank
- Beer parlor
- Jail
- Book store
- Bowling alley
- Dancing school
- Dentist
- Diaper Service
- Funeral home
- Hardware store
After reading the list out loud we decided to identify things from that list that we now have on Ocracoke. They are:
- Policeman (deputy sheriffs)
- Elevator (there is an elevator in the Anchorage Inn, and a few in private homes)
- Brick building (the Bluff Shoal Motel and Captain’s Cargo [the former post office] were the first brick buildings on the island)
- Lawyer (I believe there is only one practicing resident lawyer on the island)
- Doctor (and a Health Clinic)
- Sidewalk (that narrow concrete pavement along Irvin Garrish Highway around the harbor)
- Bank
- Beer parlor (several, to be sure!)
- Jail (used mostly for folks who have spent too much time in the beer parlors!)
- Book store (thanks to Leslie Lanier at Books to be Red)
- Hardware Store (this business is a franchise of True Value located in the Variety Store; the gas station is a franchise of Exxon; and Kitty Hawk Kites is a local area franchise…so one might argue that we have one or more “chain stores,” but I don’t think this is what Goerch meant by “chain store.”
Then we did some brain-storming and came up with a list of things Ocacoke has had in the past (any time from the 1700s until recently) but that we no longer have. Here is that list (in no particular order):
- Movie theaters (one, the “Ocean Wave” built in 1914 near the present-day Harborside Gift Shop; and another in the Wahab Village Hotel [now Blackbeard’s Lodge] in the 1940s through the early 1960s)
- Roller Skating Rink (also located in the Wahab Village Hotel)
- Appliance Store (near the Harborside Motel, run by Sid Tolson in the 1950s)
- Ice Plant (located where Kitty Hawk Kites is today)
- US Coast Guard Station (we still have a Coast Guard presence, but no active station)
- Saturday night square dances (nowadays only held on special occasions)
- Mounted Boy Scout troop
- Furniture store (one of the original businesses located in the Variety Store building)
- Barber Shops (although today we have a hair salon, formerly there were “barber shops” with real barber poles; one was located at the Community Store, another “down point” on Loop Road
- Dive shop (located in Oyster Creek development)
- Clam canning factory (Doxee’s, ca. 1897-ca. 1912, on the SW shore of Silver Lake harbor)
- Victorian Hotel (the Ponder Hotel, 1885-1900, located where the NCCAT [former USCG Station] building is now)
- Railway (a length of track from the Ponder (or Ponzer) hotel to the beach, laid to accommodate a horse-drawn tram)
- Florist (at one time we had two!)
- Bakery
- Laundromat
- Pony Penning (a July 4th tradition for many years)
- Year-around passenger ferry (various mailboats, including the Aleta and the Dolphin), although a high-speed passenger ferry now operates from Hatteras during the summer season.
- Artists Colony (see https://www.villagecraftsmen.com/ocracokes-artists-colony/)
- Free-ranging cows, sheep, and goats
- Residents who have never been off the island
- Wind mills (in the mid- to late-1800s there were at least four windmills on the island)