Joachim Gans
Sir Richard Grenville, leader of Raleigh's expedition, founded the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of modern North Carolina in 1585. Among the ruins at the Roanoke site, archaeologists have discovered lumps of smelted copper and a goldsmith’s crucible attributed to Gans's work at the colony. Because the royal mining company failed to resupply colonists who were also becoming increasingly fearful of conflicts with the Native Americans, they accepted an offer from Sir Francis Drake in June 1586 to sail them to England. Each of the colonists, including Gans, left North America.
Roanoke Island
The communities of Roanoke were transformed by the construction of the first bridge connecting the island eastwards to Nags Head in 1924. For the first time automobiles were introduced where travel by water, or horse had been more common previously. The Baum bridge marked the first time that higher level infrastructure had been brought to the island. The 1924 Bridge would be the only road connection to Roanoke Island for over thirty years. Around the same time NC 345, Roanoke Island's first paved road for automobiles that covered the entire extent of the land from the marshes of Wanchese to the Northend. The north edge of 345 corresponded with a ferry that went to Manns Harbor on the mainland. The North Carolina department of transportation subsidized the Roanoke Island ferry in 1934 to lower ticket costs, this was origin of the modern N.C ferry system.