Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island was the site of the Roanoke Colony, an English settlement initially established in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh. A group of about 120 men, women and children arrived in 1587. Shortly after arriving in this New World, colonist Eleanor Dare, daughter of Governor John White, gave birth to Virginia Dare. She was the first English child born in North America. Governor White returned to England later that year for supplies. Due to impending war with Spain, White was unable to return to Roanoke Island until 1590. When he arrived, the colony had vanished. The fate of those first colonists remains a mystery to this day and is one of America's most intriguing unsolved mysteries. Archaeologists, historians, and other researchers continue to work to resolve the mystery. Visitors to the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site can watch "The Lost Colony", the second-longest-running outdoor theatre production in the United States, which presents a conjecture of the fate of Roanoke Colony.
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.