Nags Headers

Rating:
Summary: Good history from the families who were there; good pix too
Review: Great book for for getting the inside scoop from the people who were there. I enjoyed rehashing the stories from the book with my grandfather, 89, who still lives in Manteo; he first got to the OBX in the mid 1930s. I have lived on the OBX and also visited there my whole life so it was great to relate with the history and personal family narratives. I especially liked the Casino stories, and the exciting storm and war memories too. Good pictures.

Rating:
Summary: Good history from the families who were there; good pix too
Review: Great book for for getting the inside scoop from the people who were there. I enjoyed rehashing the stories from the book with my grandfather, 89, who still lives in Manteo; he first got to the OBX in the mid 1930s. I have lived on the OBX and also visited there my whole life so it was great to relate with the history and personal family narratives. I especially liked the Casino stories, and the exciting storm and war memories too. Good pictures.

Rating:
Summary: An accurate portrait of a wonderful place and time...
Review: My family owns one of the cottages in the area this author writes about, and I've been going to Nags Head since I was just a few months old. Rountree accurately captures the flavor and feeling of the area as I remember it, and as my grandparents remembered it (my grandfather first went to Nags Head in the 1930s.)

The book is filled with many black and white photos from as early as 1900, and has interviews with many of the locals whose families were among the earliest settlers along the beach. There are stories told of names like the Midgett family, Rev. Drane, the Nixons, Ras Wescott, the Buchanans, the Rascoes, Carolista Baum, and of course, the cottage builder S.J. Twine.

This book would be a pleasure to own for any who remember the "good old days", when families traipsed down the sand from one cottage to another for a cocktail party every night; when mothers would come to the beach with the kids for the whole summer and fathers joined them on weekends; when Harris's grocery store was the best (and only!) place to buy your freshly ground hamburger; dancing at the Casino; driving Jeeps on Jockey's Ridge; pig picks and clambakes on the beach; the days before Nags Head was quite so filled with tourists and more populated by summer people. It's a real trip down memory lane, and I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: A combination of oral history and narrated storytelling
Review: Nags Headers is a combination of oral history and narrated storytelling that opens a window to the summer lives of the families who lived and loved in the Nags Headers beach cottages. These cottages, which are now a century old, lie next to the Atlantic Ocean and are also colloquially known as the "Unpainted Aristocracy." They have survived terrible hurricanes, yet they are now threatened by the unyielding sea itself. The stories in Nags Headers capture myriad slices of history, from settlement before the Civil War, to a luncheon hosted for President Franklin Roosevelt, to modern day efforts to preserve the cottages' historical legacy. Of special interest is an interview with Virginia Hall, the 100-year-old survivor of a 1933 hurricane. Warm and picturesque, Nags Headers makes past years come alive.

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting and Informative Local History
Review: On a recent trip to the Carolina Outer Banks, I saw a book called NAGS HEADERS and found myself asking "Who are these Nags Headers?" Since I have enjoyed reading about various New England sea coast people, I thought I would broaden my knowledge and extend it to the people of the North Carolina coast.

Nags Head is one of the vacation resort communities in the Carolina Outer Banks, near where the Wright Brothers had their first flight and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The book tells how this sandy peninsula went from what appeared to be wasteland to become a beloved vacation community. The history is told through the eyes of the first families who vacationed here and many whose decedents still continue to vacation in Nags Head. We hear about the strong characters with temperaments that would be just as at home in Maine or Cape Cod, but also have a char that is unique to Nags Head. We learn about people who weathered many of the nation's worst storms (the Outer Banks is a favorite place for hurricanes to hit land) and the bonds that developed between the families. We also get a glimpse of North Carolina history, including some civil rights history as it touched this community.

I am certain that people who have vacationed in Nags Head will enjoy this book, but it will also be of interest to people who enjoy local history, particularly since the author includes writing samples from actual people who are decedents of the first Nags Head families or people who worked for them.


Rating:
Summary: Southern journalist does right by her Southern subject
Review: Souther journalist Susan Byrum Rountree does an admirable job of conveying the flavor of Nags Head--both the old Nags Head and the new. Before the bridge over the sound went in in the mid-20th century, Nags Head was a sleepy hamlet year-round with little to do other than swim and walk on the beach. Though it's now a booming vacation town (a little too booming for some folks' tastes!), it maintains much of the flavor of its younger self and Rountree does a terrific job of capturing the elusive charm of the area.

Nags Head, named after the old piratical practice of looping a lantern around the head of a nag to lure ships, is a thin slip of land on Bodie Island, off the eastern coast of North Carolina. Its year-round population has grown to thousands, if not tens of thousands, but it used to be quiet all year-round. The older families--the Midgetts, the Buchanans and others--have consistently come back generation after generation. This constancy and devotion are among the things which makes Nags Head so historical and so tempting to vacation-goers today. It's exciting to feel you're part of a continuum.

Covering everything from the pirate activities of yore to the sundry big hurricanes and nor'easters to the historic Wright Brothers aviation experiments at nearby Kitty Hawk, Rountree provides a rounded, well-developed taste of the whole area. She salts her narrative with wonderful old photographs and with first-person accounts of Nags Head stays. One of her fine accomplishments in this area is the inclusion of black Nags Headers--usually the maids, cooks and so on for the white families which came to spend the summer. One heartbreaking story has to do with a white Nags Head vacationer--an attractive young woman--who began to have trouble staying afloat in the ocean. Her family sent out the strongest swimmer--a young black man who worked for them. Unfortunately, the girl drowned anyway because the young man, justly afraid of being accused of improper behavior involving a white woman, tried to bring her to shore just holding her arm instead of looping his arm across her chest. With this story alone, Rountree shows the prejudices of the time and the dangers lurking in this seemingly idyllic place.

Rountree also gives her full attention to the well-known Unpainted Aristocracy, which is a few dozen oceanfront homes which have stayed in the same families for many generations. Self-taught architect and contractor S. J. Twine designed and built many of them and incorporated many ingenious design elements to help them withstand both the test of time and the year-round test of the weather and corrosive salt air. Her alive and vital portrayal of Twine, with all his genius and his idiosyncratic behaviors, is alone worth the price of the book. All in all, a job very, very well done.

Rating:
Summary: Southern journalist does right by her Southern subject
Review: Souther journalist Susan Byrum Rountree does an admirable job of conveying the flavor of Nags Head--both the old Nags Head and the new. Before the bridge over the sound went in in the mid-20th century, Nags Head was a sleepy hamlet year-round with little to do other than swim and walk on the beach. Though it's now a booming vacation town (a little too booming for some folks' tastes!), it maintains much of the flavor of its younger self and Rountree does a terrific job of capturing the elusive charm of the area.

Nags Head, named after the old piratical practice of looping a lantern around the head of a nag to lure ships, is a thin slip of land on Bodie Island, off the eastern coast of North Carolina. Its year-round population has grown to thousands, if not tens of thousands, but it used to be quiet all year-round. The older families--the Midgetts, the Buchanans and others--have consistently come back generation after generation. This constancy and devotion are among the things which makes Nags Head so historical and so tempting to vacation-goers today. It's exciting to feel you're part of a continuum.

Covering everything from the pirate activities of yore to the sundry big hurricanes and nor'easters to the historic Wright Brothers aviation experiments at nearby Kitty Hawk, Rountree provides a rounded, well-developed taste of the whole area. She salts her narrative with wonderful old photographs and with first-person accounts of Nags Head stays. One of her fine accomplishments in this area is the inclusion of black Nags Headers--usually the maids, cooks and so on for the white families which came to spend the summer. One heartbreaking story has to do with a white Nags Head vacationer--an attractive young woman--who began to have trouble staying afloat in the ocean. Her family sent out the strongest swimmer--a young black man who worked for them. Unfortunately, the girl drowned anyway because the young man, justly afraid of being accused of improper behavior involving a white woman, tried to bring her to shore just holding her arm instead of looping his arm across her chest. With this story alone, Rountree shows the prejudices of the time and the dangers lurking in this seemingly idyllic place.

Rountree also gives her full attention to the well-known Unpainted Aristocracy, which is a few dozen oceanfront homes which have stayed in the same families for many generations. Self-taught architect and contractor S. J. Twine designed and built many of them and incorporated many ingenious design elements to help them withstand both the test of time and the year-round test of the weather and corrosive salt air. Her alive and vital portrayal of Twine, with all his genius and his idiosyncratic behaviors, is alone worth the price of the book. All in all, a job very, very well done.