Currituck County, established in 1668, is the oldest and most northeastern county in the state of North Carolina. It is thought that the name "Currituck" was derived from a Native American word for "wild goose." The county covers 273 square miles of long peninsula that runs north and south along the western shore of the Currituck Sound, which, until the early 1800s, was open to the transatlantic shipping trade. In Currituck County, photographs from the 1860s through the 1960s capture the county during the Civil War, Reconstruction, World Wars I and II, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and technological advances of the 1950s. With the opening of the new Wright Memorial Bridge, dedicated on November 5, 1966, an ever-increasing flood of vacationers traveled through Currituck County to the Outer Banks, and local businesses evolved to accommodate these thousands, and later, millions of visitors. The images seen here show a way of life in Currituck County before the development of tourism.

Painfully remote in the time of the Wright brothers, today the Outer Banks famously welcomes millions of visitors each year. The journey from early isolation to popularity is recalled with remarkable insight by Ernie Bowden, a sixth-generation Outer Banker. On any given day, Ernie was a sailor, cattle baron, salvage specialist, hunter, fisherman, legal expert and elected official all at once. Born just after the end of World War I, his memories stretch from the isolation of the early twentieth century through the glamor of the world-famous duck clubs of the area and the storms that have shaped its modern-day geography. Aided by author Clark Twiddy, Ernie tells the tales of a unique life spent in this unique place.

The Currituck Outer Banks was once a beach land wilderness inhabited by indigenous Poteskeet people before being explored by the Spanish and claimed by the English. Early settlers made a hardscrabble living by small-scale fishing, farming, processing whales, and salvaging shipwrecks. Life changed in 1828 when an inlet closed, and thousands of ducks and geese descended upon the sound's waters. Locals took up wildfowl market hunting. Northern sportsmen bought marshland acres and built exclusive shooting clubs. The most ostentatious, the Whalehead Club in the heart of Corolla, embodies that golden era, which lasted 100 years. The area became more than a hunting destination when the first lifesaving station was built at Jones Hill to mitigate the loss of life from shipwrecks. Further shoreline protection came when the red-bricked Currituck Beach Lighthouse was completed in 1875. By 1970, extreme isolation and a population that fell to 15 people allowed wild horses to flourish. In 1984, a controversial paved road to the northern beaches encouraged rapid development and put the Corolla area on the map as a sought-after vacation destination. --Amazon.com.