In the late 1940s, Edgar Yow, a white Wilmington Attorney and later Mayor of Wilmington, approached Dr. We will discuss that more below because there of course is a lead in story first! Many relics can be found of the operation island wide but Ocean City has one interesting relic that still stands. Operation Bumblebee was the US project to test rockets that later would lend its findings to modern day rocket propelled missiles and even NASA. Topsail Island in the mid-1940s was owned by the United States Government and was home to “Operation Bumblebee”. Although the town of North Topsail Beach was not incorporated until the 1990s, Ocean City has an over 60 year history, most of which compliments the American story. “It’s a valuable community and it’s certainly a diverse community now.The neighborhood of Ocean City is located in North Topsail Beach (the northern area of Topsail Island).
“(Ocean City) is not only surviving despite challenges like the economy, erosion and hurricanes, it’s thriving,” Chestnut said. Chestnut said proceeds as well as those from the festival help to ensure landmarks - such as the chapel named after his father - remain intact and useable. The council has launched a crowd funding page on RocketHub: “The Historic Ocean City Jazz Festival Needs Your Support” page. This year’s festival is planned for July 3 and 4, Chestnut said, at 2649 Island Drive on North Topsail Beach. To do that, the council raises money through fundraisers, including their signature Ocean City Jazz Festival. The names and faces have changed, but the Ocean City Beach Council hopes to preserve the community’s legacy. The community is fully integrated now with newer, bigger houses built after another hurricane - Hurricane Fran - took its toll on the community 32 years after Hazel, according to Torrey’s husband, Craig. The chapel also hosts Easter Sunday services, Chestnut said. Services still are held seasonally - starting Memorial Day weekend and ending Labor Day weekend - with a rotation of ministers holding Holy Eucharist services at 11 a.m. The legacy of the people who made Ocean City possible can be found on street signs and buildings, including the community’s central meeting place Wade Chestnut Chapel, an Episcopal church built in 1957 and former home of a summer camp for black children in the area. Their home was spared and now, it belongs to Torrey and her husband. The next year, 476 Ocean Drive was built back up, but Chestnut said he still has fond memories of the “first house.” The property remains in the Chestnut family name.Įaton’s contracting company built the first homes in Ocean City and he remembered seeing his work “floating in the sound” in Hazel’s wake, Torrey said. We have a shell in our home called Hazel that we found then.”Ĭhestnut said the community would not be deterred, and homeowners had the “tenacity” to rebuild after they showed the “audacity” of establishing an oceanfront community for black people in the first place, Chestnut said. roads covered in sand and debris, homes pretty much destroyed. “Hazel wiped out all the homes in the area,” he remembered. But blacks in America - more than 100,000 of whom served overseas during the war - still found home ownership elusive. The United States experienced a period of unprecedented prosperity in the years following World War II, and that prosperity was seen in large part by new houses built in suburbs. Those opportunities had been virtually unattainable in the region before then, Chestnut said, and some had a hard time buying into it at the time. His father, Wade, and his brothers helped make Ocean City a possibility, giving black people in the region an opportunity to summer at the shore. It was a fun place to grow up and spend our youths during the summer.” “The ladies would go crabbing and we’d go help them out. “In my early youth, all the kids would play and swim,” Chestnut remembered. They were the first homeowners in the community and, like Torrey, he has happy memories on the beach spent with those closest to him. Kenneth Chestnut was a toddler when his family first called 476 Ocean Drive its own in 1949.
0 kommentar(er)
