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Buckroe Beach is a neighborhood in the independent city of Hampton, Virginia. It lies just north of Fort Monroe on the Chesapeake Bay. One of the oldest recreational areas in the state, it was long located in Elizabeth City County near the downtown area of the lost town of Phoebus prior to their consolidation with Hampton in 1952.
In 1619, the "Buck Roe" Plantation was designated for public use for the newly arrived English settlers of the Virginia Company of London. In 1620, the London Company sent Frenchmen there to teach the colonists grape and silkworm culture. By 1637, however, Buck Roe Plantation had joined the rest of the colony as a tobacco field.
Buckroe was used as a fishing camp until after the American Civil War. At the urging of community leader Harrison Phoebus, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway built by Collis Huntington extended its tracks to the area in 1882. A boarding house for summer visitors was opened by Civil War widow of Joseph Bowers Herbert, Mrs. Mary Ann Dobbins Herbert, in 1883, and the next year a public bath house was built and tourists were brought in horse-drawn carriages. In 1897, a local entrepreneur extended his electric trolley car line to Buckroe, opened a hotel, a pavilion for dancing and an amusement park. In 1898, several businessmen purchased a beachfront for blacks next to Buckroe Beach, naming it Bay Shore Beach & Resort. This amusement park and vacation destination rivaled the popularity of Buckroe Beach while racial segregation was still in effect.
The amusement park and adjacent public beach were popular destinations for social outings in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Until World War II the C&O had summer excursion service to Buckroe, using its tracks and trolley tracks from Phoebus to Buckroe. Due to declining revenue because of competition from Busch Gardens Williamsburg and the developments in air conditioning the amusement park closed in 1985 and was torn down in 1991, however, the Buckroe Beach Carousel and its Bruder band organ, were preserved and relocated to the downtown Hampton waterfront area where it is a popular attraction. [1] The only remaining relic from the amusement park that is still standing at Buckroe is the functioning lighthouse from the miniature golf course. The popular Buckroe Beach fishing pier was destroyed during Hurricane Isabel in 2003. The pier was rebuilt by the city of Hampton and opened for business on May 30, 2009. The pier is known for its cobia fishing, which has rivaled with the grandview fishing pier for the most catches. Many fishermen can be found here on a busy summer day.
Buckroe Beach was defined as a census-designated place (then termed an unincorporated place) at the 1950 United States Census with a population of 1,977. [2] In 1952 Hampton consolidated with Elizabeth City County (including Phoebus) thus making Buckroe Beach a neighborhood of the city.
Newport News is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the fifth-most populous city in Virginia and 140th-most populous city in the United States.
Hampton is an independent city in Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 137,148. It is the 7th-most populous city in Virginia and 204th-most populous city in the nation. Hampton is included in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, the 37th-largest in the United States, with a total population of 1,799,674 in 2020. This area, known as "America's First Region", also includes the independent cities of Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Suffolk, as well as other smaller cities, counties, and towns of Hampton Roads.
Ocean City, officially the Town of Ocean City, is an Atlantic resort town in Worcester County, Maryland, along the East Coast of the United States. The population was 6,844 at the 2020 U.S. census, although during summer weekends the city hosts between 320,000 and 345,000 vacationers and up to eight million visitors annually. During the summer, Ocean City becomes the second most populated municipality in Maryland, after Baltimore. It is part of the Salisbury metropolitan area as defined by the United States Census Bureau.
Cape Charles is a town / municipal corporation in Northampton County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,009 as of the 2010 Census.
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and the surrounding metropolitan region located in the southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina portions of the Tidewater Region.
Elizabeth City County was a county in southeastern Virginia from 1634 until 1952 when it was merged into the city of Hampton. Originally created in 1634 as Elizabeth River Shire, it was one of eight shires created in the Virginia Colony by order of the King Charles I. In 1636, it was subdivided, and the portion north of the harbor of Hampton Roads became known as Elizabeth City Shire. It was renamed Elizabeth City County a short time later.
The Virginia Peninsula is a peninsula in southeast Virginia, bounded by the York River, James River, Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay. It is sometimes known as the Lower Peninsula to distinguish it from two other peninsulas to the north, the Middle Peninsula and the Northern Neck.
The Middle Peninsula is the second of three large peninsulas on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. To the north the Rappahannock River separates it from the Northern Neck peninsula. To the south the York River separates it from the Virginia Peninsula. It encompasses six Virginia counties: Essex, Gloucester, King and Queen, King William, Mathews, and Middlesex. Developed for tobacco plantations in the colonial era, in the 21st century the Middle Peninsula is known for its quiet rural life, vegetable truck-farming, and fishing industry. As of the 2020 census, the Middle Peninsula was home to 92,886 people.
The Jersey Shore is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Geographically, the term encompasses about 141 miles (227 km) of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May Point in the south. The region includes Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, and Cape May counties, which are in the central and southern parts of the state. Located in the center of the Northeast Megalopolis, the northern half of the shore region is part of the New York metropolitan area, while the southern half of the shore region is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area, also known as the Delaware Valley. The Jersey Shore hosts the highest concentration of oceanside boardwalks in the United States.
Phoebus is an incorporated town located in present day Hampton, Virginia on the Virginia Peninsula. In 1900, it was named in honor of local businessman Harrison Phoebus (1840–1886), who is credited with convincing the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) to extend its tracks to the town from Newport News.
Norfolk County was a county of the South Hampton Roads in eastern Virginia in the United States that was created in 1691. After the American Civil War, for a period of about 100 years, portions of Norfolk County were lost and the territory of the county reduced as they were annexed by the independent and growing cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth and South Norfolk.
Ocean View is a coastal region in the independent city of Norfolk, Virginia in the United States. It has several miles of shoreline on the Chesapeake Bay to the north, starting with Willoughby Spit to the west and the Joint Expeditionary Base -- Little Creek in the independent city of Virginia Beach on the east.
Hampton Roads Transit (HRT), incorporated on October 1, 1999, began through the voluntary merger of PENTRAN on the Virginia Peninsula and TRT in South Hampton Roads and currently serves over 22 million annual passengers within its 369-square-mile (960 km2) service area around Hampton Roads. The purpose of the HRT is to provide reliable and efficient transportation service and facilities to the Hampton Roads community. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 6,750,200, or about 25,500 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
State Route 168 is a primary state highway in the South Hampton Roads region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It runs from the border with North Carolina through the independent cities of Chesapeake and Norfolk where it ends in the Ocean View area near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.
Charles I. D. Looff was a Danish master carver and builder of hand-carved carousels and amusement rides, who immigrated to the United States of America in 1870. Looff built the first carousel at Coney Island in 1876. During his lifetime, he built over 40 carousels, several amusements parks, numerous roller coasters and Ferris wheels, and built California's famous Santa Monica Pier. He became famous for creating the unique Coney Island style of carousel carving.
Fox Hill once known as Rip Raps is an area within the eastern part of Hampton, Virginia. It is mostly a residential community with a few small businesses scattered throughout. Fox Hill is bordered to the south by Phoebus, a neighborhood and former town that was incorporated within the city of Hampton; and Buckroe, a small beachfront community. Fox Hill Extends from Bloxom's Corner down Beach Road to Grandview Island and includes areas down Beach Road and borders Colonial Acres at Silver Isles Blvd.
North Point State Park is a public recreation area located on Chesapeake Bay in Edgemere, Baltimore County, Maryland. The state park includes the site of the former Bay Shore Park, which was one of the state's premiere amusement parks during the first half of the 20th century. The park features restored remnants of the old amusement park as well as facilities for swimming, picnicking, bicycling, and hiking. Black Marsh, a 667-acre (270 ha) state wildlands area, makes up half the park's area. The park is administered by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Bay Shore Beach was a beach that existed adjacent to Buckroe Beach in Hampton, Virginia in the 20th century. It was founded in 1898 by several African-American businessmen. The beach was one of the most popular resort and vacation destinations in the Mid-Atlantic region for African-Americans. In addition to standard beach activities, hotels, and restaurants, Bay Shore also had an amusement park. The beach was in its prime of popularity from 1898 until 1933 when a Hurricane devastated the coast. Both "sides" of the beach, were respectively rebuilt, however, Bay Shore may not have been built back to its former heights, although it continued to remain popular.
A boardwalk is a promenade along a beach or waterfront. In North America, and particularly in the United States, many waterfront commercial boardwalks have become so successful as tourist attractions that the simple wooden pathways have been replaced by esplanades made of concrete, brick or other construction, sometimes with a wooden façade on the surface. An entertainment boardwalk often contains an amusement park, casinos, or hotels on a pier-like structure. One of the earliest such boardwalks was designed in New Jersey and opened June 26, 1870, in Atlantic City.