page_title: Cape Hatteras
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cape Hatteras / History
caption_attribution_description: Historic photo of the Cape Hatteras Life-Saving Station, part of the Life-Saving Service (later to become the United States Coast Guard).
context_page_description: Cape Hatteras is a bend in Hatteras Island, one of the barrier islands of North Carolina.
  For thousands of years these barrier islands have survived onslaughts of wind and sea. Long stretches of beach, sand dunes, marshes, and maritime forests create a unique environment where wind and waves shape the topography. A large area of the Outer Banks is part of a National Park, called the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It is also the nearest landmass on the North American mainland to Bermuda, which is about 563 nautical miles to the east-southeast.
  The treacherous waters off the coast of the Outer Banks are known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, Over 600 ships wrecked here as victims of shallow shoals, storms, and war. Diamond Shoals, a bank of shifting sand ridges hidden beneath the turbulent sea off Cape Hatteras, has never promised safe passage for ships. In the past 400 years the graveyard has claimed many lives, but island villagers saved many. As early as the 1870s, villagers served in the US Life-Saving Service. Others staffed lighthouses built to guide mariners.
context_section_description: The name Hatteras is the sixth oldest surviving English place-name in the U.S. An inlet north of the cape was named "Hatrask" in 1585 by Sir Richard Grenville, the admiral leading the Roanoke Colony expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh. It was later applied to the island and cape as well, and modified to "Hatteras." Hatteras is the name of the Hatteras Indians.
  Because mariners utilize ocean currents to speed their journey, many ships venture close to Cape Hatteras when traveling along the eastern seaboard, risking the perils of sailing close to the shoals amid turbulent water and the frequent storms occurring in the area. So many ships have been lost off Cape Hatteras that the area is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Cape Hatteras is also well known for surfing.
  The first lighthouse at the cape was built in 1803; it was replaced by the current Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1870, which at 198.48 feet (60.50 m) from the ground to the tip of its lightning rod is the tallest lighthouse in the United States and one of the tallest brick lighthouses in the world. In 1999, as the receding shoreline had come dangerously close to Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the 4830-ton lighthouse was lifted and moved inland a distance of 2,900 feet (880 m). Its distance from the seashore is now 1,500 feet (460 m), about the same as when it was originally built.
  The E.M. Clark (shipwreck and remains), Empire Gem (shipwreck and remains), and USS Monitor are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  In 1956 the Naval Facility Cape Hatteras, adjacent to the lighthouse, became the eighth of nine shore terminals of the Atlantic Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) operational for over twenty-six years. The antisubmarine ocean surveillance purpose was classified and covered under "oceanographic research" until well after its decommissioning in June 1982. By 1963 there were 122 Navy personnel and 180 dependents resident at the facility.
caption: The Cape Hatteras Life Guard Station, which later became part of the Durant Motel, and was upended by Hurricane Isabel in 2003
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:03:30 16:47:07", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3587", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "360", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "218"}