From
the early days when native
American Indians fished and
hunted to today's modern vacation
paradise, Topsail Island has
always had a colorful and
unique history.
Pirate
Legends
Edward
Teach, known as Blackbeard,
Stede Bonnett and Captain
Kidd were known to ravage
the North Carolina coast and
operated near the island.
Topsail Inlet and Topsail
Sound took their names from
merchant ship Captains who
warned their lookouts to be
on the alert for topsails
visible behind the high dunes
on the island from pirate
ships lying in ambush.
So,
did Topsail Island get its name
because of the pirates that
frequented the area? No.
There's
no doubt that Blackbeard and
Bonnet were in the area of Topsail
Inlet and Topsail Sound, even
though a 1747 map puts
Topsail Inlet near Cape Lookout,
30 miles away, and an 1808 map
puts the inlet at Beaufort Harbor.
But,
it wasn't named Topsail Island
until 1971 by Edward Yow, an
early developer. Before that
it had been called, at various
times, The Banks, Ashe Island,
Sand Spit, Sears Landing and,
sometimes, Long Island.
In
the 1930's, many men came over
and dug a big hole in the island.
They were looking for something,
but wouldn't say what. They
excavated, shored and braced,
worked a crew long and hard,
then, just as suddenly, they
were gone.
Was
it buried treasure? Did they
find it? Why did they leave
so suddenly? No one knows.
But
the big treasure hunt wasn't
for pirate treasure, it was
to recover lost treasure from
a Spanish galleon wrecked near
Topsail Inlet in August 1750.
The
Army Moves In
During
WW II the Army moved their antiaircraft
artillery school to the new
Army camp on the island (Camp
Davis) and set up their gunnery
practice areas at Sears Landing,
near the pontoon ferry to the
island.
Coastal
defense guns were set up on
the beachfront and the gunners
could practice firing at targets
towed offshore by small boats.
Camp
Davis was built up almost overnight.
Construction started the day
after Christmas in 1940 and
the first troops moved in five
months later, in April 1941.
Then the war ended, and just
as quickly as the base built
up, it emptied.
And
Then Came the Navy
Camp
Davis sprang to life again when
the Navy took charge June 1,
1946, after the war, because
they needed a remote area for
their secret rocket experiments,
known as the Bumblebee project.
The
Navy Bureau of Ordnance and
John Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory built camera
towers, roads, buildings, and
a revised pontoon bridge for
the secret missile test facility.
On
this 26 mile beach test range,
some 200 experimental rockets
were fired from 1947 to 1948.
Missile
experiments on Topsail Island
led to the development of technology
used in 'Talos', a shipborne
system. 'Talos' used a solid
fuel booster first stage to
accelerate the second stage
to the critical velocity required
by the ramjet second stage.
Look
around and you can't miss seeing
several odd-shaped white concrete
buildings, and some other large
buildings. Many of today's buildings
on Topsail Island were built
from lumber that had been used
in base buildings.
You
can see Topsail history come
alive at the Topsail Island
Missiles
and More Museum located
in the Assembly Building at
720 Channel Boulevard at Topsail
Beach.
Missile
Observation Towers
There
were eight towers in all. The
one between the Assembly Building
and the launchpad (now the patio
at the Jolly Roger Inn) was
the control tower. The other
towers held cameras and telemetering
equipment used to track the
flight of the missile.
A
couple of these towers have
now been made into very attractive
homes, one on the beachfront
and another overlooking the
sound.