The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1959-12-25

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Matcha Pungo Garden Club, as
sisted the younger hostesses. APP
proximately $50 guests called.
las year.
The agricultural boom has spur
red other developments too. South
ern Starch Industries says it plans
to build "a multi-million dollar wet
milling process corn starch plant
between Roper and Plymouth" The
company says it will have yearly
need for $4,000 acres Of corn.
Some internationally known
names have also gotten toe
hold on the vast Eastern land
scape. The millionaire Murchisons
Of Texas have 1900 acres next to
part of Parker's land. Arnold Chase
of the Chase Manhattan Bank owns
10000 acres and Peter Grace of
the Grace Shipping Line has g.
900 acres.
But local farmers are vitality in
terested in the new land too. Old
county names like Bell and White
hurst are settlers just like the mid
western Dutchmen named Hubers
and Van Staalduinen.
Braxton Bell, who owns 1000
acres of the new farmland calls
it "good land" Other local peo-
pie who cast a jaundiced eye at
the swamp for years are adding
farms there sow. Metropolitan Life
Insurance Co., has financed many
ofthe new landowners.
The Mcmillan brothers of Wash
ington, sons of the late North Car
DINA Attorney General Harry Nc
Mullan, have a stake in the prop
er'ty. Harry Jr., operates the Wash
ington office of Lake Phelps Farms
while younger son Jim has gone
into the grain storage business
with big metal bins in the middle
of the prior wilderness.
The migration from the plains
of Iowa and Kansas has been
spurred by three factors: Even at
$225 an acre, Land is cheaper than
in the Midwest; North Cardinals
warmer climate is more attractive
than snowy winters; and the pio-
neers just like to try something
new in a new land.
But such grandiose develop
ment project takes money, and lots
of it.
J. D. Parker estimates that So
million has been spent on roads,
canals and bitches alone. give put
in over $50 miles of bitches and
roads myself and it cost about ST.
900 mile," he says.
When Lake Phelp Farms first
got to work in the area-with
bustling. Woodworking Kim Saund-
ers of Washington as land-clearing
and developing foreman-the devel-
opers merely drained and cleared
the land before selling it.
Experience showed them they
had to change their methods some
what, and the Land is now farmed
slightly before it's sold. Develop
ers found the land to be a little
sour and add two tons of lime per
acre to "sweeten it,"
The little communities that are
springing up in the badlands
have electricity and phone service.
Virginia Electric and Power Co.,
supplies the juice and the Tri-C oun-
ty Phone Coop, of Belhaven has
put in the phones.
The developers and the set
tiers are after roadwork and have
petitioned the State Highway De-
partment to put some of the dirt
roads on the secondary system.
Harold Makepeace, secondary
roads chief, made a trip through
the Grassy Ridge section several
weeks ago and promised to look
into the road situation. Landowners
also want blacktop on a road that
runs from Roper to Wenona.
The development march is on.
With the land alone worth a po-
tential $2O-$3O million, economy in
a sparsely populated part of the
State could take a sudden upward
squirt in the next decade or so.
at will mean so much to the
county for taxes and so much to
our people for development" says
Jesse Knowle, a member of the
Washington County Board Of Com
missioner.
It's felt that the economic hori-
ION of the swamp turned farmland
is as broad as it's natural hori-
ION.
The Land, checkered with roads
and bitches, stretches out far be-
yond the eyesight Cattle Craze
in immense pastures and lend an
air of presettied Western plains
|. The sludge Of wet peat and
bog is gone and men, houses and
machines are moving In.