| Avon at a Glance About two-thirds of the way down Hatteras Island, and about 10 miles north of the thick elbow of land where the Banks turn west at Cape Hatteras, is the town of Avon. Before the Post Office Department decided on that name in 1883, the community was known as Big Kinnakeet. By the time of the Civil War, there were also two small settlements a couple miles north known as Scarborotown and Little Kinnakeet. But, when the National Seashore was created in 1953, private land holdings in the area were consolidated around Avon. Reliable accounts suggest that, in colonial days and well after, this section was forested and shipbuilding was a major industry. By 1850, the census counted the population at 318. By the late 1800s, however, the last of many great natural waves of sand moved across the beach and the forest, leaving the whole place flat and treeless. Fortunately, the original Cape Hatteras lighthouse had been built and rebuilt near present-day Buxton, and the U.S. Lifesaving Service had established a station at Little Kinnakeet, giving local men employment of a more honorable and steady nature than plundering wrecked vessels, the occupation some of their ancestors had been driven to. Hatterasmen took to the job of lifesaving with such heroism and selflessness that generations after, their descendants still aspired to jobs with the Coast Guard. As late as 1950, more than half the breadwinners in Kennekeet Township (Avon and north), received paychecks from that service, for active or past duty. One particularly dramatic rescue occurred offshore of Avon in December of 1884 when crews from Hatteras and Creeds Hill lifesaving stations, to the south, launched their surfboats into the roughest sea old timers had ever witnessed to save the entire crew of the Ephraim Williams. The disabled barkentine had foundered off Frying Pan shoals three days earlier while headed for Providence, RI, with a load of Georgia lumber. The surfmen had followed her up the coast until she finally came close enough for a rescue attempt. Apparently, such was the state of communications then that the men of the Big Kinnakeet station, south of present-day Avon, and Little Kinnakeet, just north, didn´t take part in that rescue and thus missed out on the coveted gold medals issued to the seven men who did. But they had their hands full nine years later with the wreck of the Nathan Esterbrook, and six years after that with the several wrecks from the hurricane of 1899, and with dozens of less publicized disasters in between. Little Kinnakeet Station has survived to this day, along with a larger structure and lookout tower built in 1904. They can be seen on the west side of the highway near the Pamlico Sound where they were moved when beach erosion eventually caused the station, itself, to be in need of rescue from the sea. Avon has the distinct advantage of having started with a very wide beach and to this day has a series of wide, stabile dunes that protect it far more than other communities. It also has the advantage of being north of a spot that was, until about 350 years ago, an inlet called Chacandepeco which the sea cut through again, temporarily, during the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962. Islanders have long called the same place "the haulover" due to the ease of traversing it by small boat in high water. Near Avon on the sound side is a shallow crescent-shaped bay, now known as Canadian Hole, because it is the destination of choice for windsurfing enthusiasts from as far away as Canada. In the spring and fall, especially, when winds are at their best for windsurfing, the beautiful, brightly colored sails dot the horizon as they fly skim the horizon. Nature and long-time residents of the island have their own ways of discouraging over-development. Limited growth and rising property values, therefore, are the most likely outcome for this relatively undeveloped 70-mile stretch that includes, north to south, the towns and villages of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras. |