Ocean City Jazz Festival

Transcript

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Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina.

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Hello everyone, this is Leah Norman from Topsail Talk and I'm co-hosting today with Krista on Topsail Insider.

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We have a special interview with Mr Kenneth Chestnut.

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We have a special interview with Mr Kenneth Chestnut.

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Kenneth Chestnut is the son of one of Ocean City's founders and he is here to share the rich history of Ocean City and give us an inside look at the Ocean City Jazz Festival North Topsail's premier cultural event that features Grammy-nominated jazz musicians.

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Learn how this vibrant event has become a cornerstone for jazz enthusiasts and a celebration of cultural heritage.

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You don't want to miss this insightful interview today on Topsail Insider.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Topsail Insider.

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My name is Krista and I am your host.

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And today's co-host is the fabulous Leah Norman from Topsail Talk.

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Welcome, leah.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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Today we're talking with Mr Kenneth Chestnut.

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He is a second-generation resident and the son of Mr Wade Chestnut, a founder of Ocean City.

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Welcome, kenneth.

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Thank you for joining us today.

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Well, thank you, it's really a pleasure to be here and I look forward to this.

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It's going to be fun.

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I feel very honored that you're coming here and sitting with us today.

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It's a privilege of mine, thank you.

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We have a lot to cover.

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We're going to talk about the history of the Jazz Festival and the logistics, but first I want to talk about the history of the Ocean City Beach community in North Topsail.

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City Beach community in North Topsail.

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Yeah, it's so important to know the history, and I came to know it when I was introduced to the festival.

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Then I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Chestnut and he is just a wealth of information and I'm still learning.

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But I'm so excited to bring this information to you guys, and so I'm going to now pass the mic on to Mr Kenneth, who was going to tell you about the founding of it and how it came to be.

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Thank you so much, leah.

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I always enjoy telling this story, and when I look back and think about the founding of Ocean City, it's just constant excitement and it's so important to tell the story.

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I believe that the story of communities like Ocean City very often do not get told or they get erased, and so part of our mission is to continue to tell the story so people are aware of this long and rich history.

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I will say that when I first moved here, Kenneth, I did not know the history.

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I didn't even know where Ocean City was on the island.

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And it wasn't until I interviewed the ladies from the Missiles and More Ocean City was on the island, and it wasn't until I interviewed the ladies from the Missiles and More Museum that I heard about it and I learned about it.

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That's right.

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And the Missiles and More, and the Topsail Historic Society have done a great job.

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We just last month opened a new exhibit featuring Ocean City, so we're excited about that and again it's an opportunity to tell the story.

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Well, we have a couple of things coming up.

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One is we're celebrating the 75th anniversary of this community we call Ocean City, and then the second thing that's a part of that is we're having the 14th annual Jazz Festival.

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So let me just talk briefly about the history of the Ocean City community.

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It was founded in 1949.

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History of the Ocean City community it was founded in 1949.

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Prior to that, Topsail Island was a part of Camp Davis, which was a military base during World War II.

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In Holly Ridge they had an operation on the entire Topsail Island.

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It was called Operation Bumblebee, and so if you're traveling on the island, you'll notice some towers, typically a three-story concrete tower that survived storms, hurricanes, everything, and they're still standing.

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Some have been converted into different buildings, homes, retail shops and so forth, and so the cornerstone of the Ocean City community was a tower, if you will.

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But after World War II and Camp Davis closed, the whole island was open for redevelopment.

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There was a gentleman from Wilmington his name was Edgar Yao I-O-W, and he and his brother were very prominent lawyers in Wilmington.

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He was a mayor, in fact, in the mid-40s.

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Edgar Yao was in.

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Wilmington for a term or two and his brother was city attorney, mr Yow, was able to develop a large segment of Topsail Island, primarily in Sur City going north, and for some reason he had this vision of African Americans being able to own oceanfront property on Topsail Island.

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Now where that originated I never knew, but he had this vision of this occurring and you have to remember the context of the time we're in.

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We're in 1949, which is 50 years, essentially from 1898, some 20-plus years from Shell Island at Wrightsville Beach, and so in this environment in the South, he had this vision and he decided to do something about it.

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He knew a Dr Samuel Gray, who's originally from Jamaica, who had a very prominent medical practice in Wilmington, and so he talked to Dr Gray about it.

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Dr Gray said he was busy with his medical practice, didn't have time, but he knew someone that may be interested.

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And Dr Gray knew my was busy with his medical practice, didn't have time, but he knew someone that may be interested.

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And Dr Gray knew my dad and his brothers.

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They had an automobile repair shop on the north side of Wilmington and they had a very good business.

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They had wreckers and did a lot of automobile repair, I think at the height they had maybe 12 mechanics working for them.

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But my dad?

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The vision resonated with him and so he left the family business and devoted his time to developing Ocean City, and his brother, robert, was the first president of the corporation.

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And my dad was one of the founders and committed the rest of his life to this development, and so a corporation was formed.

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Mr Yow was a part of that, this development, and so a corporation was formed Mr Yow was a part of that A couple of other gentlemen, my dad and his brothers to develop this one mile stretch, and so they had a map made and plans made of an area that would be carved out for retail and business area, and then the rest were residential.

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And so once they did a map and divided it into roads and lots and so forth, they went about trying to sell these lots.

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They would go around to different medical organizations where doctors would be or lawyers would be and promote Ocean City, and so at the time the lots on the ocean were $500.

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Wow, the lots won.

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If you can believe that, Did it just burn you.

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Yes.

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And the lots off of the ocean were $100.

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Incredible.

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But that was again in late 40s, early 50s.

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I remember my dad talking to a lady who wanted to buy a lot and he said, well, don't worry about the money, just give me a down payment to buy a lot.

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And he said, well, don't worry about the money, just give me a down payment to hold your lot.

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And she said, well, can I put a down payment on the down payment?

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I think she was a school teacher, yeah, and so the concept of it was to be a residential community where people could feel safe and own property and enjoy the beach and so forth.

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And then the tower became a rose, converted into a restaurant, expanded and converted into a restaurant.

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Oh, and it was called Ocean City Terrace.

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Interesting.

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I've never heard that before.

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And then the restaurant was expanded so people could look out over the water and enjoy their meal, and then there was a terrace above where people could look out at the ocean.

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It had music and so forth, so it was really a nice community when you look back at some of the old photographs of families on the beach enjoying it.

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And later a fishing pier was built.

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This was in 1958.

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And the fishing pier was one of the best locations for fishing on the island, and so a lot of people would come and fish on this fishing pier was one of the best locations for fishing on the island and so a lot of people would come and fish on this fishing pier, because if the fish were just biting and particularly in the fall when spots are running then people would be shoulder to shoulder catching fish, and so people would come there from all walks of life and their focus was on fishing.

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So it didn't matter their background, their race or where they were from.

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They wanted to catch fish.

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I love that.

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And so that was the focus.

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During that time, my dad managed the fishing pier and the restaurant, and so as a kid I grew up working for him.

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So whatever he wanted me to do, whether it was picking up trash or on weekends, I'd sell snow cones whatever it was, you started early.

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Oh yeah, how old were you?

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I was 12 years old when I started and you loved it.

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Oh yeah, I did.

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I bet you did.

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I loved growing up on the beach and my friends and so forth.

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But that was the whole concept of Ocean City and that's what made it thrive, Because people just didn't have the opportunity to enjoy that kind of environment and the beach and so forth.

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And so Blotts started to sell our house that my mom and dad built.

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And let me take a second about my mom.

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She was an educator.

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She taught school in New Hanover County for over 30 years.

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Wow and is well known.

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I still run into some of her students today.

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Oh my gosh, but she was very active in the community.

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She was on the board of the hospital, new Hanover Hospital and president of the YWCA in Wilmington.

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When they merged, when the Phyllis Wheatley, which was the black Y, merged with the white Y, how about that?

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She was president of that and later received a Lifetime Achievement Award for that.

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So she was very active in the Episcopal Church as well, which is a church a family were members of in Wilmington, and so we would be on the beach during the summer.

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My brother and I would be working, just busy supporting the business, but we'd have time off to swim and fish and all that.

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So it was a great childhood and a great time to be growing up.

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But the first house was built in 49.

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And then there were some other people that built homes there.

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For example, next door was Mr Rogers who owned a funeral home in Fedville.

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Next to him was Mr Millett, who had a cleaning business in Wilmington.

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Dr Nars, who was a dentist in Durham.

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Mr Ms Williams, a cleaning business in Wilmington.

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Dr Norris, who was a dentist in Durham.

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Mr Ms Williams, who taught school in Wilmington and he worked for the Coastline Railroad.

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And then Dr LW Upperman, who's a very prominent physician in Wilmington.

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That you can remember all this is amazing.

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Now, these were people who were buying.

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They started buying the lots and building their and they built their homes.

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They're not considered the founders Well, not the founders of the corporation, but some of the original homeowners.

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Gotcha yeah Okay.

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There were some others, that Dr Cowan, who was a physician from Wilson, so I'm just trying to paint a picture of people that came from all over.

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Carla Torrey's dad, Mr Eton, was a prominent builder.

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In fact, he built 30 homes on the island.

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All these homes he built.

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So they were one of the early families and so things were moving along.

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In 50, 51, 52, and then in 54, Hurricane Hazel came and it was just devastating.

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It wiped out almost all of the homes, maybe except for a couple.

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That's terrible, but the pier wasn't built at that time the pier came in 50.

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Not at that time, so you, took a blow.

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We took a blow.

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Pretty early on.

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That's right it was a severe blow and I admire those founders and early home builders for the tenacity of building back.

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Oh, they did I often say they could have given up and say, well, we tried, it didn't work.

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But they had the tenacity to build back and built back smarter.

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And so the house that we currently have, the family home, was built in 55 after Hazel.

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And so houses continued to be built then, and then, in 57, a chapel was built.

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The corporation decided to carve out a portion of land on 210 and donate it to the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina.

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The pier was built in 58, the first pier oh, the first pier.

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Yes.

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Okay, the first pier was built in 58.

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And that was a corporation of homeowners, and some of the people that built homes there invested in the corporation.

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My dad was a president of it, but there were a lot of investors the Yowls were among those and some other business people in Wilmington that invested in this pier, so it was a multiracial ownership of the pier.

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Along with that, the church in Wilmington was St Mark's Episcopal Church that we were members of.

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The rector there was a Father Curtin.

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Father Curtin would come to the beach and have Sunday service in our living room, just for a few residents that wanted to go to church, so he'd have a service there.

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And then that took some traction and more and more people started coming and so the chapel was built.

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This land that the corporation donated to the diocese became the location for the chapel.

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Nice.

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Which is still here today.

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It's there now.

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Okay, do you know which chapel?

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I haven't seen it.

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Okay, it's the Wade Chestnut Chapel.

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It was rededicated and named after my dad in 62.

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There's some pictures that Leah's referring to that show the first service.

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Carla's dad, mr Eaton, built this chapel and so there were folding chairs and so forth for the first service, because people were just anxious to get into it.

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It was first called St Mark's Chapel and then, after my dad died, it was rededicated in his honor.

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The other connection with the Episcopal Church was.

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Father Curtin had this idea of a camp, a camp for African-American kids, Episcopal kids or really any denomination, but a place where they could go and have a camping experience.

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The first camp was at Pawleys Island in South Carolina.

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That was destroyed after Hazel and he talked to my dad about setting aside a certain segment of time during the summer for kids to have the camping experience there in the restaurant where they would meet and have activities and then have beach swimming and things like that.

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And then the motel was built about the same time as the pier and so the kids would stay in the motel, and so that happened for about three years I went to that camp.

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You did.

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Yeah, oh yeah.

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I wish listeners could see the smile on his face actually right now.

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In fact there's a lady who lives on the beach that would tease me, because I'd have my little bag walking from my house over to the camp.

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Oh, my goodness.

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And she said I was so serious, you know, about going there.

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Love that.

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But that camp touched so many kids.

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I did an article on the history of Camp Oceanside is what it was called and once it started really getting some traction, the dormitories were built, activities building and dining hall was built and it could accommodate maybe 60 kids and they would have different sessions.

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The priests from this diocese would come and take their vacation very often and devote their time to a particular area of the camp.

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One may be a Bible study or arts and crafts or oceanfront activities and so forth.

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But the growing people today fondly talk about the camp and the impact it had on them.

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It was typically a two-week session for kids and they did just have fond memories because they would have not had the opportunity to have a camping experience like that otherwise, and so it was just it was, and so there are pictures of kids and just having fun and all these activities planned for them.

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Is it still happening today?

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No, because in 1985, the camp closed.

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What occurred was integration, so was one thing that occurred well before then.

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But then the diocese decided to build a new camp this Camp Trinity is on Emerald Isle and so there was a white camp called Camp Leach, and then there was a black camp, camp Oceanside that I'm referring to, and so those were closed and the new camp was Camp Trinity, which is at Emerald.

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Isle Okay.

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One of the important things, particularly for my mom was on the board, very active on the board was for kids to have a neutral place to go.

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She taught school.

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She saw what happened during integration when black kids went to white schools and they were rejected or had difficulties.

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Black kids went to white schools and they were rejected or had difficulties, and so her big focus was persuading the diocese let's close both camps.

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And then they started a neutral camp, and so that's what occurred, and so it's a thriving camp.

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Camp Trinity, it's a conference center Still going on today.

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Oh yeah, oh, that's wonderful.

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My son went there, my grandson went there in fact for a couple of sessions.

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But to keep Oceanside from becoming a camp again, the dormitory was torn down, and then one of the buildings was torn down, and the buildings that are currently there, which is a chapel, the community center and a cottage, currently serve the Ocean City community.

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Okay, and so church services occur between Memorial Day and Labor Day every Sunday, and there are different priests that rotate in and out, and so people come from all over.

00:19:39.057 --> 00:19:49.058
Some are residents, some are on vacation, and they see it on the website or Facebook page and it's very casual, and so there's a wide range.

00:19:49.058 --> 00:19:51.490
Each Sunday there's a different person conducting service.

00:19:51.490 --> 00:19:58.423
I feel like this is kind of a dumb question, but do you see a real uptick in attendance during the high season, the summer months?

00:19:58.624 --> 00:20:00.916
Oh, yes, and we're only open during the summer months.

00:20:00.977 --> 00:20:01.358
Oh you are.

00:20:01.358 --> 00:20:02.432
So it's only open from.

00:20:02.653 --> 00:20:04.218
Memorial Day to Labor Day.

00:20:04.358 --> 00:20:05.101
Okay, yeah, okay.

00:20:05.549 --> 00:20:17.269
And so it's active in the community center which was the activity center for the camp still standing, and it serves as a community center for the Ocean City community today.

00:20:17.269 --> 00:20:23.403
In fact, the proceeds which we'll get into the jazz festival help support these buildings.

00:20:23.810 --> 00:20:25.758
The upkeep of the historic building.

00:20:25.758 --> 00:20:26.179
That's right.

00:20:27.290 --> 00:20:36.855
That's an important part of the community this chapel, the community center and so forth but it originated as a camp.

00:20:36.855 --> 00:20:38.856
I mentioned there was a motel built.

00:20:38.856 --> 00:20:41.953
It was like 12 units there, one-story motel.

00:20:42.075 --> 00:20:42.696
Is it still there?

00:20:43.069 --> 00:20:46.613
No, it was demolished, well, actually destroyed.

00:20:46.613 --> 00:20:53.539
In 1996, we had two major hurricanes, hurricanes Fran and Bertha.

00:20:53.539 --> 00:21:00.405
Right right, right and they wiped out the pier and the motel and several buildings.

00:21:00.405 --> 00:21:06.000
I mentioned that the first pier was built in 58.

00:21:06.021 --> 00:21:08.613
There were a series of hurricanes that damaged the pier.

00:21:08.613 --> 00:21:19.788
It would have to be rebuilt, and so it was a long pier, had a kind of a bulb on the end of it where people could fish, but hurricanes would destroy it.

00:21:19.788 --> 00:21:29.698
It would build back, destroy it and build back, until it got to the point that it was not financially feasible to continue to do that and you could not get insurance on it.

00:21:29.698 --> 00:21:44.803
I'm thinking of one occurrence where my dad and I were at the pier and a storm was coming and the waves started coming over the end of the pier and he said son, I think it's time to go home.

00:21:45.234 --> 00:21:46.009
I said yeah, dad, I agree.

00:21:46.009 --> 00:21:47.228
Oh gosh.

00:21:48.113 --> 00:22:03.925
So we went to Wilmington and then the next day we came back down and we could only get as far as the North Topsail line, coming north on 210, where it goes from Surf City to North Topsail.

00:22:03.925 --> 00:22:05.654
There was a store there.

00:22:05.654 --> 00:22:08.056
It was called the Mermaid, currently it's called the Lion.

00:22:08.056 --> 00:22:13.440
It's there now, but we could get with cars, get as far as that.

00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:19.178
And then there were Jeeps that would shuttle us back to sea, because people wanted to know how their homes were.

00:22:19.178 --> 00:22:22.601
They would always call my dad, how much damage is it?

00:22:22.601 --> 00:22:26.260
And of course that was well before the concept of cell phones.

00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:27.695
Right, right yeah.

00:22:28.309 --> 00:22:47.337
The next morning, after this hurricane, my dad and I were coming back to check, and so we were standing there in the parking lot waiting for a Jeep to take us down, and Mr Yao was there, and so I was about 12 years old, and so Mr Yao asked me if I wanted a soda, and I said, no, monsieur, I don't want a soda.

00:22:47.337 --> 00:22:49.517
And he said, yeah, don't you want a soda?

00:22:49.517 --> 00:22:55.121
I said no, and I didn't want a soda because I knew I couldn't get served in that location.

00:22:55.422 --> 00:22:55.863
Oh really.

00:22:56.029 --> 00:22:57.296
Yeah, that was just the way it was.

00:22:57.296 --> 00:23:04.622
It was the Jim Crow era that we're in, and so it was against the law, typically for anybody to serve.

00:23:04.721 --> 00:23:06.023
Oh, it was not the line at that time.

00:23:06.023 --> 00:23:06.765
It was the Mermaid.

00:23:06.765 --> 00:23:08.326
You're talking about the store that was there.

00:23:08.326 --> 00:23:09.027
That's the Mermaid.

00:23:09.027 --> 00:23:09.606
Yeah, All right.

00:23:09.869 --> 00:23:16.820
So I could need a Woolworth's lunch counter for example so that was the environment that we're in in Jim Crow South.

00:23:16.820 --> 00:23:19.070
And so he said don't you want to?

00:23:19.070 --> 00:23:19.632
I said no, it's yeah.

00:23:19.632 --> 00:23:20.112
So I said no, it's Yao.

00:23:20.112 --> 00:23:24.736
So he insisted and took me in and he told the gentleman there, give him a soda.

00:23:24.736 --> 00:23:26.958
And the guy looked at him but he gave me a soda.

00:23:26.958 --> 00:23:30.000
He didn't have to do that, but that's something that stuck with me.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:32.282
It told me what kind of man he was.

00:23:32.282 --> 00:23:36.626
So when nobody's looking, nobody really cared.

00:23:38.990 --> 00:23:41.353
He spoke for who he was, and so that's always resonated with me.

00:23:41.353 --> 00:23:44.895
Yao was, as I said, a prominent attorney.

00:23:44.895 --> 00:23:46.538
He loved hunting.

00:23:46.538 --> 00:23:53.846
He would have a station wagon with his hunting dog in the back and he'd steal a streak of tobacco along the side of his car.

00:23:53.846 --> 00:23:56.612
But that's just who he was.

00:23:56.612 --> 00:24:00.382
He and his wife had a house not far from there in Sneets Ferry area.

00:24:00.501 --> 00:24:00.782
Okay.

00:24:01.049 --> 00:24:08.442
But that's who he was, and so I tell that story just to get a picture of who Egea was.

00:24:08.442 --> 00:24:15.492
And so he and my family, his wife and family, became good friends of ours and we knew their son and so forth.

00:24:15.492 --> 00:24:30.336
And then, as we moved forward, the community started to get some traction and we were upholding the timeframe of dealing with some threats to the community primarily environmental threats, I'll call it.

00:24:30.336 --> 00:24:46.703
And so we have sea level rise, we have hurricanes, and we have a different type of hurricane, in that the previous hurricanes were mainly wind events and so they would pass through in a day or so and be gone.

00:24:46.703 --> 00:24:54.950
Usually it was a day and primarily high winds and some rain, but in recent years we've seen hurricanes at a huge water event.

00:24:55.089 --> 00:24:59.261
So they'll just hover and dump water inches and inches and inches of water.

00:24:59.970 --> 00:25:15.884
And so that's another threat, and then the other is erosion, which we're seeing all up and down the East Coast, and so, with sea level rise, erosion, hurricanes, all the coastal communities are threatened by this environment that we're currently finding ourselves in.

00:25:15.884 --> 00:25:20.721
I'm currently very active with the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

00:25:20.721 --> 00:25:26.201
It's a nonprofit that really works to protect the environment and protect the coast.

00:25:26.201 --> 00:25:33.083
I'm on their board and so I've driven to that because I've seen over the years the impact on the coastline.

00:25:33.690 --> 00:25:35.557
What happens in the future to the community.

00:25:36.029 --> 00:25:40.481
There are steps being taken to move sand up on the beach.

00:25:40.481 --> 00:25:42.577
It's called their beach nourishment projects.

00:25:42.577 --> 00:25:45.538
You see those all up and down the coast.

00:25:45.538 --> 00:25:47.257
Every community is dealing with that.

00:25:48.090 --> 00:25:49.576
What about is it called seagrass?

00:25:49.576 --> 00:25:50.019
What is this?

00:25:50.019 --> 00:25:53.877
Seagrass helps to stabilize Are y'all doing that specifically in Ocean UR.

00:25:54.190 --> 00:25:56.115
We've been doing that for years, and years.

00:25:56.135 --> 00:25:57.319
Oh, okay, yeah, for yeah.

00:25:58.029 --> 00:26:03.835
But in spite of putting the sand, sometimes it's pumped up from the ocean or hauled in.

00:26:03.835 --> 00:26:11.164
I just finished a segment of the Project Phase 5 this spring and the sand has been hauled in.

00:26:11.164 --> 00:26:17.130
But over the years what I've observed is Mother Nature will say well, come and reclaim her sand.

00:26:17.130 --> 00:26:25.163
And so you do this, and then the sand will go back out and then people will put, but I don't know how sustainable it is.

00:26:25.163 --> 00:26:30.400
It's very costly, and so there's always a debate as to who pays for it.

00:26:31.191 --> 00:26:36.778
Certainly the local governing authority, whether it's a town or they have only a limited amount of money.

00:26:36.778 --> 00:26:40.824
They rely on Raleigh or federal funds to help support that.

00:26:40.824 --> 00:26:45.951
And then there's a debate to help support that.

00:26:45.951 --> 00:26:52.112
And then there's a debate are we really helping those homeowners or are we helping to restore and make available this resource for the whole state of North Carolina that people can use?

00:26:52.112 --> 00:26:53.856
So there's a debate about that.

00:26:53.856 --> 00:27:00.861
But that's the effort being made and then, once the sand is up, definitely stabilizing it with a lot of different methods.

00:27:00.861 --> 00:27:02.751
Seagrass is definitely one of those.

00:27:02.892 --> 00:27:07.121
I got to say and I'm not there on the front lines and I don't see it right.

00:27:07.121 --> 00:27:11.329
I'm over here, I'm in Hampstead, so I feel like I see pictures after the hurricanes.

00:27:11.329 --> 00:27:18.317
I see the nourishment happening in the news or in photos online, but then another storm comes and it feels like it's just.

00:27:18.317 --> 00:27:20.815
It becomes like a little cliff, like it's washed off.

00:27:20.815 --> 00:27:24.810
That's exactly right cliff like it's washed off and it just goes out as quickly as it took a long time to get it nourished.

00:27:24.931 --> 00:27:25.333
That's right.

00:27:25.432 --> 00:27:29.592
And then it goes out so fast and it's heartbreaking and I know that's got to cost a lot of money.

00:27:29.592 --> 00:27:30.875
I know it costs a lot of time.

00:27:30.875 --> 00:27:34.022
Have you seen homes washed away?

00:27:34.230 --> 00:27:35.953
Oh, absolutely, you have Absolutely.

00:27:35.953 --> 00:27:39.942
One of the streets on Ocean City community is Ocean Drive.

00:27:39.942 --> 00:27:48.634
If you go north on Ocean Drive, the street continues, but there were houses on the ocean side that are no longer there.

00:27:48.634 --> 00:27:50.220
It's just a dune now.

00:27:50.220 --> 00:27:53.430
So over the years those houses were destroyed.

00:27:53.490 --> 00:27:54.366
There were houses there.

00:27:54.589 --> 00:27:59.321
There were houses there that were destroyed, and this goes all up and down the coast.

00:27:59.402 --> 00:28:12.483
I mean, if you think about Cape Hatteras, the lighthouse that had to be moved some years ago, kenneth, I was in the third grade when they were, we collected money in our classroom to contribute to moving that lighthouse.

00:28:12.483 --> 00:28:14.895
Yeah, yeah, it's been going on a long time.

00:28:15.611 --> 00:28:19.000
So that's a part of the threat that we're dealing with.

00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:29.498
The other threat is I mentioned that the whole concept of Ocean City was to have a family-oriented community, with pressure for vacationers to have access to the beach.

00:28:29.498 --> 00:28:43.645
We're seeing some large homes I call them mini hotels very often but multiple bedrooms being built where people would come, have no awareness of the community, use the ocean and leave.

00:28:43.645 --> 00:28:55.827
If you have too much of that, then it destroys the character of the community, and so we try to do what we can to keep it as a low-density, family-oriented community.

00:28:55.847 --> 00:28:56.589
That's got to be a battle.

00:28:56.650 --> 00:29:04.416
So there's some balance with that and so if you look at the Outer Banks and you see all those many hotels there, that's what we're trying to stay away from.

00:29:04.416 --> 00:29:15.442
But there's obviously pressure because more and more people are moving to the coast or to this part of the state really all up and down the state of North Carolina, south Carolina, etc.

00:29:15.442 --> 00:29:20.467
There's more pressure for people to have access to the ocean and vacation.

00:29:20.467 --> 00:29:26.358
Some of that's okay, but if you get too much of that then it destroys the character of the community, the history of it.

00:29:26.519 --> 00:29:26.940
That's right.

00:29:26.940 --> 00:29:29.124
Is there nothing in place to protect?

00:29:29.124 --> 00:29:30.712
It's a historical mile.

00:29:31.615 --> 00:29:32.798
That's an excellent question.

00:29:32.798 --> 00:29:34.882
We try to do a couple of things.

00:29:34.882 --> 00:29:42.709
One is we first of all have signs that were built last year that mark the location of Ocean City.

00:29:42.709 --> 00:29:44.741
Ocean City signs on each end of that mile stretch so people know when they're of Ocean City.

00:29:44.741 --> 00:29:47.938
Ocean City signs on each end of that mile stretch so people know when they're entering Ocean City.

00:29:47.938 --> 00:29:57.699
Years ago, the city helped us dedicate street signs that has the Ocean City logo on them so you can know when you're in the community.

00:29:57.699 --> 00:30:04.643
And then in 2011, we were made a part of the African American Trail for Onslow County.

00:30:04.762 --> 00:30:04.983
Nice.

00:30:05.130 --> 00:30:10.402
And so there's a plaque and photographs and so forth in front of the chapel that note that.

00:30:10.402 --> 00:30:17.423
And then in 22, we were named a part of the Civil Rights Trail by the state of North Carolina.

00:30:17.423 --> 00:30:19.237
We were number four in the state.

00:30:19.237 --> 00:30:34.820
They're doing 50 locations, and so we were number four, they're doing 50 locations, and so we were number four, and the Secretary Wilson, from Raleigh and State Natural and Cultural Resources once we had to make our case and do the application which Carla just did, a fantastic job about the history.

00:30:34.882 --> 00:30:40.506
So we have a historic marker noting that as a historical community.

00:30:40.626 --> 00:30:41.446
And tell me about Carla.

00:30:42.289 --> 00:30:48.996
Carla Torrey is William and Octavia Eaton's daughter, and so she's second generation.

00:30:48.996 --> 00:31:01.835
She is past president of the community Ocean City Community Citizens Council and she's the chair and organizer she and her husband Craig of the Jazz Festival.

00:31:01.996 --> 00:31:02.336
Okay.

00:31:02.356 --> 00:31:04.342
You know, and they just do an incredible job.

00:31:04.342 --> 00:31:11.375
They really dedicate their lives to Ocean City and applying for grants and helping to organize the Jazz Festival.

00:31:11.375 --> 00:31:15.359
So whatever they ask me to do, I'll do, like today, you know.

00:31:17.069 --> 00:31:18.115
Is that the only reason?

00:31:18.154 --> 00:31:18.696
you're here.

00:31:19.574 --> 00:31:20.196
Yeah, I'll tell you.

00:31:21.375 --> 00:31:23.214
Well, thank you, carla, I appreciate it.

00:31:23.269 --> 00:31:28.742
Yeah, carla, you're a tremendous couple and they really dedicate themselves to everything that we're doing.

00:31:28.742 --> 00:31:41.324
So a lot of these things that I'm talking about, carla and Craig have initiated and we have these events and recognitions to help make people aware of the community and the history of the community.

00:31:41.324 --> 00:31:46.392
Community and the history of the community.

00:31:46.392 --> 00:31:51.060
And so, going back, krista, to your question about preservation, then we talked to the state historic preservation about that.

00:31:51.060 --> 00:32:04.948
But we have such a mixture of architectural types now that we really didn't qualify, and some of that's because of hurricanes, and so there's a certain style of house that was built in the 50s and 60s.

00:32:04.948 --> 00:32:13.474
Primarily it's a flatter roof, maybe two stories, and then there's a mixture of homes that have been rebuilt or new homes built.

00:32:13.957 --> 00:32:16.766
And so it's such a mixture of types of architecture.

00:32:16.766 --> 00:32:18.510
It wasn't consistent enough.

00:32:18.612 --> 00:32:19.855
And there's no way to control.

00:32:19.855 --> 00:32:20.718
No, that's right.

00:32:20.718 --> 00:32:22.162
Yeah, that's unfortunate though.

00:32:22.430 --> 00:32:22.810
That's right.

00:32:22.810 --> 00:32:26.172
And so Ocean City started as a community.

00:32:26.172 --> 00:32:27.195
It's still a community.

00:32:27.195 --> 00:32:29.968
When it started there was no North Topsail.

00:32:29.968 --> 00:32:41.638
North Topsail didn't come into being until the late 80s and there was a road, there were power lines, water lines, but the houses that were built early on were on septic tanks.

00:32:41.638 --> 00:32:52.038
I mentioned Dr Upperman being one of the early homeowners and very prominent physician in Wilmington and Upperman Center at UNCW.

00:32:52.038 --> 00:32:55.150
He funded that upon his death.

00:32:55.150 --> 00:33:02.778
His daughter still lives in Wilmington but he would collect money from the homeowners to pay for streetlights, for example.

00:33:02.778 --> 00:33:04.709
None of that was there, oh wow.

00:33:04.709 --> 00:33:10.980
So it was just really a road and then, if you went further north, even ran out of electric lines.

00:33:10.980 --> 00:33:16.277
But let me just take a second and describe the sense of community that I mentioned and what would happen.

00:33:16.277 --> 00:33:19.318
There are some photographs of the men getting together.

00:33:19.318 --> 00:33:27.500
They play cards or whatever, and the ladies would get together, but one of the favorite things for the ladies to do would be to go crabbing.

00:33:27.500 --> 00:33:29.150
They would go crabbing at the—.

00:33:29.150 --> 00:33:30.255
I did not expect to hear that.

00:33:30.255 --> 00:33:30.836
I'm sorry.

00:33:31.109 --> 00:33:43.099
They would go crabbing at the inlet and they'd catch these, I mean just bounties of crabs, and they had it down to a science they knew when to go when the tide was beginning to turn.

00:33:43.099 --> 00:33:43.711
How about that?

00:33:43.711 --> 00:33:53.972
My mom would say, and others would say that you go when the moon is rising, not on a waning mood, because the crabs have more crab meat and so being a smart kid.

00:33:53.972 --> 00:33:54.896
I said is that right?

00:33:55.851 --> 00:34:18.306
Probably yeah, it was right, and so what they would stage was the ladies would get together, drive to the inlet and then us kids would tag along to help them to carry the baskets and the nets and everything, because you had to walk about a half a mile to the inlet, and it's the North Topsail Inlet, and so that was a big event.

00:34:18.306 --> 00:34:26.371
I remember one particular day that a couple of friends and myself and my brother were going along with them and they were just catching crabs.

00:34:26.371 --> 00:34:31.481
I mean, they had a bushel basket, a couple of them full of crabs, and they didn't want to stop.

00:34:31.481 --> 00:34:35.726
And so they told us well, take your jeans off.

00:34:35.726 --> 00:34:42.543
We had one of our swimming trunks under it, and they would tie it up to the ends of our jeans and put crabs in there.

00:34:42.563 --> 00:34:43.063
Yes, oh, my goodness.

00:34:43.063 --> 00:34:44.106
So they were very innovative.

00:34:44.106 --> 00:34:45.789
So innovative, smart ladies.

00:34:46.655 --> 00:34:54.572
And when they would come back, they would make all these dishes that they would share with each other like a crab casserole and devil crabs Love that and they would share with each other like a crab casserole and devil crabs.

00:34:54.572 --> 00:35:00.452
Love that and they would just go house to house, just sharing the fruits of their labor, if you will Strongs as a community.

00:35:00.452 --> 00:35:04.905
I love that so much and so there was a cookbook developed in the 80s.

00:35:04.905 --> 00:35:06.981
It captured these recipes.

00:35:06.981 --> 00:35:10.925
It's been a new version of that with additional recipes.

00:35:11.005 --> 00:35:11.726
Still available?

00:35:11.726 --> 00:35:13.097
Yeah, that's available on the website Amazon.

00:35:13.097 --> 00:35:13.800

Ocean City Jazz Festival

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