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Key dates in the history of NC Highway 12

Here are key dates in the history of North Carolina’s Highway 12, which runs the length of the N.C. Outer Banks.

1838: The Outer Banks’ first hotel is built at Nags Head.

1846: A storm creates Oregon Inlet, cutting a path between Bodie and Hatteras islands.

1903: The Wright brothers fly the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk.

1926: Dare County passes $300,000 bond to build a bridge from Nags Head to Roanoke Island

1928: First bridge, the Roanoke Sound Bridge, opens (might actually be 1928); made out of 18-foot timbers that are 4” thick and a foot wide. 22 feet high, with old abandoned railroad bridge purchased for $1,000 placed across the middle that could open and close. Was 16-feet wide.

1930: The Wright Memorial Bridge opens. It started in Point Harbor, crossed the Currituck Sound and landed in Martin’s Point at Kitty Hawk.

1931: North Carolina Highway Commission decides to pave the Virginia Dare Trail, an 18-mile stretch from Whalebone Junction (Roanoke Sound Bridge) to Kitty Hawk (Wright Memorial Bridge).

1933: General Assembly decides it will buy the Roanoke Bridge and Wright Memorial Bridge.

1935: North Carolina takes over the Roanoke Sound Bridge with $15,000 to pay off. State also buys the Wright Memorial Bridge for $150,000, half of its original cost.

1947: North Carolina paves a 12-mile stretch from Hatteras, nearly to Avon. That linked Hatteras, Frisco and Buxton.

1951: The road is paved from where it ended south of Avon to Rodanthe, near the lower tip of the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. That’s 17 miles of pavement.

1951: The Roanoke Sound Bridge is replaced.

1952: State replaces the Roanoke Sound Bridge with a 22-foot-wide concrete bridge.

1952: U.S. National Park Service paves five miles from the Virginia Dare Trail at Whalebone Junction to near the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

1952: State paves three miles from the end of the national park road to Oregon Inlet, adds NC State Road 1001 designation

1953: The 12 miles through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge are paved. A mile between the end of Hatteras and the Hatteras Inlet ferry dock is also paved, meaning all of Hatteras Island had a road. The Hatteras Island road was named N.C. State Road 1001. There was a free ferry across the Oregon Inlet.

1953: The Cape Hatteras National Seashore is established.

1953: State Road 1200 opens from the northern end of the Virginia Dare Trail to Duck.

1957: Highway Patrol assigns a trooper to Hatteras Island, and a driver’s license office is opened up in Avon. (Carr, 45)

1957: On Ocracoke, pavement is laid from Ocracoke village heading north but is not completed.

1958: The final three-mile stretch of Ocracoke is paved, cutting the ride from Hatteras in half. The Ocracoke Road is named State Road 1323.

1962: The Ash Wednesday Storm devastates the Outer Banks. The nor’easter damaged 1,300 buildings, destroyed 60 more and cut a new inlet near Buxton.

1962: The Roanoke Sound Bridge is renamed the Washington F. Baum Bridge.

1963: The Herbert C. Bonner Bridge opens. The $4 million bridge had a 28-foot-wide roadway, with 65 feet of clearance through 180 feet of inlet for boats. It could withstand 120 mile per hour winds and was dedicated on Nov. 12.

1963: Road through the Outer Banks is renamed N.C. 12.

1966: The Wright Memorial Bridge is replaced by a concrete bridge, 2.8-miles long and $3.3 million. The replacement is 80 feet to the south of the original.

1987: The section of road from Duck to Corolla is paved.

1990: Washington F. Baum Bridge is replaced again, with a $15.3 million bridge made of concrete and steel.

1990: In October, a dredge strikes the Bonner Bridge during a storm. Part of the bridge collapsed, taking power and telephone lines with it. Repairs would take more than three months.

1991: In an effort to stabilize Oregon Inlet and protect the Bonner Bridge, construction of a 3,125-foot terminal groin on the northern tip of Pea Island is completed.

1999: Hurricane Dennis pounds the Outer Banks for nearly six days, destroying several houses at Rodanthe and washing out a section of Highway 12 north of Buxton.

2003: Hurricane Isabel carves a temporary inlet between Frisco and Hatteras.

2011: Hurricane Irene reopens New Inlet on the northern part of Hatteras Island.

2017: The N.C. Department of Transportation dedicates the Richard Etheridge Bridge, crossing the since-filled-in New Inlet.

2019: Basnight Bridge opens in February, replacing the Bonner Bridge

2019: Hurricane Dorian brings record-setting storm surge, damaging two sections of N.C. 12 on northern Ocracoke Island and making ferry access difficult.

2022: The new jug handle bridge to Rodanthe is set to open in February or March.

Sources: Coastal Review Online; First Colony Inn; N.C. Department of Transportation; NC 12: Gateway to the Outer Banks by Dawson Carr; The News & Observer