The State of Things; First Flight Special Part 1

I'm Frank Stasio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I'm Melinda Penn-Kava in Kill Devil Hills and this is first flight special coverage live from WNC Radio. 100 years ago this week, Orville and Wilbur Wright made history when they took to the skies. Those first 12 seconds in the air launched a century of innovation. Here at the Wright Brothers Memorial there's a Centennial Festival underway this week and on Wednesday a pilot in a replica of the Wright Flyer will try to recreate that first flight here if the weather holds out. We start our special coverage of the first flight today with a closer look at the land where the Wrights chose to make their historic first flight. The outer banks of North Carolina. This was a desolate place in 1903 a vast expanse of sand and we'll talk this hour about what drew the rights to it. And we'll talk about how the place has changed. All that ahead this hour is part of our first flight special coverage. This is special coverage of the first flight Centennial I'm Frank Stasio in the

WNC Studios in Chapel Hill North Carolina. And I'm Melinda Penn-Kava in Kill Devil Hills on the North Carolina outer banks. We are just a few hundred yards from where Wilbur and Orville Wright made their historic first flight 100 years ago this week. It was to Kitty Hawk that the Wright Brothers came at the turn of the century. They were looking for a place to test their flying machine, a place with wide open spaces, few prying eyes, and plenty of wind. They found it all at Kitty Hawk. And after months of trials on December 17 1903 Wilbur and Orville lifted their flyer into the air. The first traveled 120 feet. It lasted just 12 seconds. It was short and bumpy. But for the first time in history a heavier than air powered controlled plane had been flown by a pilot. And a photograph famously captured that scene. There was Orville on board at the

controls. Wilbur alongside the plane as it lifted from the ground. But even though the Wrights would fly four times that day, recognition was slow in coming. It took years five years for the bicycle mechanics from Ohio to finally be acclaimed as the first man of flight. And when they finally were, Kitty Hawk shared in that fame. As we begin our special coverage of the first flight today, we'll take a look at the place where the Wright Brothers chose Kitty Hawk on the outer banks. That slim strip of North Carolina barrier islands. That's coming up this hour. But first we're going to check in right now here at Kill Devil Hills with W. U. N. C. reporter Rusty Jacobs who's been here at the Wright Brothers Memorial for the past few days as this Centennial Festival has been underway. Welcome Rusty. Thanks, Melinda. Well, what have you been seeing out there? There are more and more people showing up. Multitudes. Yeah, this is a place I think normally used to being a focal point of so much attention during the summer months. But it's December now. A lot of outer bankers actually take the vacations now, but a lot of stayed around as

well to come see the side of the festivities. And as we should explain, we are experiencing right now flyovers, which are happening in the noon time hours as we're going to be broadcasting this week. Yeah, this is much to hear as to see right now the drone and a steady roar of modern airplanes and vintage world war two planes of all kinds going overhead. I'm looking at the program I'm told that this is this is a military day here. It's it's what protecting the home of the brave day. Yeah, and contrary to what a lot of people think it was not time to come the day after Saddam Hussein was captured. I asked a public information officer about that the military is expert at controlling information, but this was not planned. Thank you for your thoroughness on that. So that's what we're hearing is the joint POW rescue demonstration going on. So there are lots of folks who are coming here and you've been in the crowd. So any particular stories you're hearing? Yeah, well, among the first few people I met was a woman, her two children and her husband from Los Angeles. They've been planning this trip for at least half a year. They're actually this was the final stop on a pilgrimage of sorts they've made. They stopped in

Dayton to see where the rights bicycle shop was and this woman just said she really wanted to impart to her children what you can achieve by just putting your minds to something. She really enjoys the story of two bicycle mechanics who turned out to be great engineers and scientists as well. Well, now in addition to the tens of thousands who are expected here through the week and especially on Wednesday when they're going to try to recreate that first flight on Wednesday, President Bush is coming here too. Indeed. Yeah, and you would think that that might throw disarray into the mix here, but the people, the organizers say it really amounts to just shuffling schedule, you know, schedule of speakers to accommodate the president. That's not the big deal. The biggest deal is weather. Weather could have a much bigger impact on Wednesday's events than the president's visit. Because if it rains, no flight, no reenactment. Yeah, and that is really is the culminate the pinnacle, the peak really of the whole celebration. Now security's been tight here. Yeah, they have shipped in park service rangers from from as far away as the Grand Canyon. I met a ranger from the Everglades and they were trained, especially to deal

with security. I mean, 10 years ago, this might not have been as big a security operation, but it's pretty it's a pretty big deal now, but it's been moving fairly smoothly. Yeah, and despite all that security, and you know, when you walk around the grounds, if you look off to the edge in the perimeter, you'll see tents and soldiers and cameras and M16s or what I'm not sure what rifles are coming, but there are armed national guards troops and soldiers. So yeah, you have a mix of state, federal, military, park ranger, personnel all working together in a pretty big operation. And yet despite that kind of security, you know, people can go up and get pretty close to that replica of the flyer. Yeah, it's going to try to make that flight. This is, you know, the EAA is taking this on. It's this group. Yeah, and it's it's a striking sight, the plane because it is so big, but kind of flimsy looking because I mean, it, you know, looks like it's struts are very thin pieces of wood. It's got muslin wings, which, you know, really look like they could be used as sheets or something when they're not being used as a plane. And one of the best

demonstrations was this a couple of days ago or or they go when they tried to they wanted to put the engine through some paces and they didn't get very far because there was a propeller shaft problem, but the engineers say that won't be a problem once. But that almost sounds like a very particular reenactment because that was an issue for the Wright brothers 100 years ago. And that's exactly the way Ken Hyde, the chief builder of the replica, portrayed it. He said, look, we're going through what the rights went through and he said, we're going to be repairing the same kind of damage they had on December 14, which put off their first flight until the 17. No, there's also another exhibit here. The flight simulator. Indeed. If you want to get a taste of what it was like for the Wright brothers, you can put your body into it. Yeah, it's a good thing I wasn't with the rights in 1903 because I crashed it in I think five, six seconds at the most. I lasted. This is not an easy, easily maneuverable craft. Yeah. And so explain how explain for folks how it is that you're laying across the the bottom of a plane. Well, part of the bottom of the plane. It's like it's the least controllable position you could

imagine. You're lying prone forward and you have to operate the stick with your left hand. You have to move your hips simultaneously to steer left or right. And if you were actually operating the instrument, you'd have to do that with your right hand. So it's an amazing amount of coordination. I leg hip coordination. And it's not easy to do, at least according to the simulator. Yeah, I crashed it too. I should confess when I tried it this morning. Well, not the only one. Well, Resty Jacobs, thanks so much. My pleasure. Resty Jacobs is a reporter for WUNC Radio. If you've ever visited the Wright Brothers Memorial and Kill Devil Hill, chances are you may have heard Daryl Collins talk about the history of the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk. And Daryl Collins is the chief historian and interpreter of the Wright Brothers National Memorial and he joins us now. Thanks for stepping over here for a moment. Well, Daryl Collins, you have been at this job for a couple of decades now of explaining the Wright Brothers to I'm imagining millions of visitors who've come through here. Oh yeah, we have millions of people come here in my career here. I started as a

seasonal ranger while I was still in college and after a year I fell in love with the story of the Wright Brothers and felt this might be a career worth pursuing. That's all I did. Now, what made you fall in love with the story? There's something in the Wright Brothers story for people of all ages. Perseverance, hard work, dedication. These are the characteristics of the Wright Brothers. So tell us why they decided that Kitty Hawk had to be the place where they were going to do this. Well, initially they were looking for a place to fly gliders and kites. The first four years were gliders only. So they needed a place where the winds were dependable. And they researched whether you're statistics and found Kitty Hawk, there'd be number six on the list, the one in spots. Wrote a letter to the weather station that was established here in 1875. And then that letter was passed on to the postman of Kitty Hawk, his name was William Tate, who actually wrote the Wright Brothers Letterback game of personal invitation. Your boys come on down here. I help you anywhere can. Southern

hospitality. And also a lot of isolation too. I mean, it wasn't like they were going to have the prying eyes of people. There are other cities like Chicago or Buffalo that are in windy places. The wind is spot was Chicago, but it was a very populated area. And they didn't want a lot of people hanging out making fun of them, you might say. Because that was an issue at that time. Other people were trying to put objects in the air and fly. But but when you have prying eyes, it inhibits the way you're working. Oh, yeah. Your it was the main center of power attempts to the turn of the century. The Europeans were pumping all kinds of money into trying to solve this problem. And the Wright Brothers only spent $1200 for the whole five years up to the first flight at Kitty Hawk. So they arrive here at Kitty Hawk from Dayton, Ohio. They're bicycle mechanics. They are they've been working on this and they need to try it. And they were they came here because there was a hill here. And actually to fly gliders and cut so they needed high heels to launch gliders off. And there was actually

four giant dunes here, which they could launch gliders off the heels. But ultimately they they needed a flat surface to go because it wouldn't count if you came off of a hill. You couldn't really count that as controlled. Now a bit more of a more of a glide. The whole purpose of the experiment was to prove that the machine could take off from a dead stand steel on level ground by the power of the engine and the thrust of the props, just like airplanes do today. So what did they find when they got here to Kitty Hawk to kill double hills in 1900 when they first arrived? Well, this was a wilderness. And they basically was camping out a very isolated area lonely area. Almost as lonely as the surface of the moon is the two terrains almost the same. Yeah, I've seen the photographs and it's astounding being here today. And you see the monument and of course the throngs of people not to mention Highway 158 and Highway 12 and all the development around it. But you look at these pictures and it is like you say the

moon because there might be one or two little shacks. And then as far as the I can see, it's just a sea of sand. Yeah, the Wright brothers would not recognize they all stopping grounds. Yeah. And sand was important for them to have to for you weren't going to fly the first time you attempted it. So yeah, sand was important for soft landings, but also sand got into everything that they did. The machinery, even the food that they were eating, they were eating sand at times. So it was like camping, as you say. They weren't living high here. Yeah, initially this was a vacation for the Wright brothers and eventually it became an obsession trying to solve this problem. What kind of impression do they cast on the people here? Well, the locals look at them as oddities, the exentrics, but they kind of relate to the Wright brothers because they saw how dedicated they were and how hard work and they were. And these were the characteristics of the people who lived on that impact at that time. This is a very hard and very harsh environment to make a living off of. Well, Daryl Collins is talking with us today about the Wright brothers and we'll have more of our

conversation with Daryl Collins in a moment. Support for First Flight Coverage comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and listeners who support WNC. This is First Flight Special Coverage. I'm Frank Stasho in Chapel Hill, North

Carolina. And I'm Melinda Penn-Cava at the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills on North Carolina's Outer Banks. Daryl Collins is with us. He is the chief historian and interpreter at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. He is also a native outer banks or two. His family's roots go back more than 140 years to the Friedman colony that settled on nearby Roanoke Island. Well, Daryl Collins, when the Wright brothers arrived here in 1900, they were two bicycle mechanics from Ohio who showed up wearing suits and this is an area where people made their life more or less off the sea or the land here. And you were saying that people helped them out and some of those who helped them out were the men who ran the life-saving stations. Yeah, much of the help came from the Kill Devil Hills station, which was about a half a mile south of the Wright Brothers campsite. And these men assisted launching gliders off the

hills, helping the Wright Brothers build their camp buildings, and they were witnesses to the power flights that morning. Three of them were there. Three men were Etheridge, Doe, and Daniels. There's a few well-known names on the outer banks. I know you work here at the visitor center and you talk to people about what the Wright Brothers accomplished. What is the one point you want people to take away from here about what it was they did here at Kitty Hawk at Kill Devil Hills? Well, a lot of people think the Wright Brothers is kind of stumbled into their air. The Wright Brothers were two engineers and they were true scientists. They didn't just build an airplane and fly it. What they did, they discovered the fundamentals of flight. Basic control was the key to their success. The three axes role-pitching y'all developed by the Wright Brothers the year before they built their plane. They actually solved the problems of human flight in the year of 1902 and the glider that flew off the hills here

a thousand times. That control has been used in every man-made flying machine since the O2 glider, rockets, missiles, satellites, helicopters, space shuttle or take off and final. That is really the immortal legacy of the Wright Brothers 100 years after the first power flight at Kitty Hawk. But then they came back a year later and what was significant then was they had a machine of motors. The Wright Brothers always felt that adding power to the invention will be these power their project. In 1899 they identified control as the key so they solved that problem. It took them four years to solve that one problem. What's the most memorable question you've ever been asked here by visitors? A visitor to the center at Wright Brothers Memorial. There's been so many. Probably why did the Wright Brothers never marry. They were bachelors all their lives. One reason why they didn't marry because they had two older brothers who went to college.

Got married, had five children each and the Wright Brothers saw how hard life was for all the brothers that it would have evolved in it. When Wilbur was in France a lady came up to him and asked him how come he never married and he's just told her we could support a wife and a airplane too. Well that's you have to say a lot for candor there. How you grew up around here in in the outer banks area? Yeah well and many in North Carolina as well. Born and raised. How big was the Wright Brothers story when you were growing up? Well it's just like anything else you know when you live near a place all your life you don't really take it for granted. I really didn't learn about the Wright bills until I really started to work here and really learn you know the significance of what they did. I was surprised to understand that they did not get a claim right away. It wasn't as though there was a first year anniversary or a second year anniversary or a third year anniversary of the Wright Brothers

first flight. It took a number of years for A for them to get recognition and B for you start to have people who would come here to kill Devil Hills to celebrate that. Yeah it actually took the Wright Brothers almost five years to prove to the world that they flew at Kitty Hall. You didn't have all the mass media that would have today instant news and people didn't believe what they read in newspapers until they saw it for themselves. The Wright Brothers unveiled their airplane to the world in America as well as European continent in August and September of 1908. That's when they approved the world that it really did happen. On the morning of December 17 1903 the place called Kitty Houghton off Carolina and once the Wright Brothers would demonstrate this control to the world men would just jump into the air. Yeah and it took 25 good quarter century or so to have a monument put here and to start having people come out on a yearly basis or regular basis. Yeah the monument was dedicated to the Wright Brothers in 1932 and that's when they had a bridge that came across the

sounds of people who actually have access to the site. Well Darryl Collins thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you. Darryl Collins is the chief historian and interpreter here at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Well this week thousands of people from all over the country have come to the Wright Brothers National Memorial and Kill Devil Hills to celebrate the first flight. But some of the locals have decided to stay home. David Stick is one of those. He's in a story and a long time resident of the Outer Banks. His book the

Outer Banks of North Carolina was published in 1958 is still regarded by many bankers as the definitive story of the islands and he joins us today. Welcome Mr. Stick. Hello. What do you make of all this? Well it's quite a festival. Yeah. It's too much of a festival as far as I'm concerned. I used to love carnivals and fairs when I was a kid but this has developed into almost the same sort of thing and I'm tired of people telling me that the main reason they're coming here is to hear the beach boys or the embers and especially to be present when John Travolta is here on Wednesday. Well now do you think that's really why they're coming? This is after all a monumental event. I mean this is the 100th anniversary of the first powered man flight. It's a big deal. There are some who are coming because of their knowledge of what the Wright Brothers did. Their respect for their amazing accomplishments and the pay tribute to them but

I'm afraid they're in the minority. Well I can sit here. My retirement home is four miles from the Wright Memorial. I can see it across Kitty Hawk Bay. I have been listening and saying all morning the planes flying overhead and so this is as much of it as I want because I don't want to get down there and have the music blurring and I don't want to I'm really ashamed to go down to the Kitty Hawk post office which has a new banner up there that says that they have for sale now t-shirts as well as frame dark. Well now assuming yeah so it's just a little too commercial for you. It's been a promotional effort to get more people down here. But assuming that we can't assuming that we can't let the 100th anniversary of man flight go unnoticed, how would you have organized this? I tried my best to get them to change it and to go back to a kind of respectful observance they've been having sponsored by the first flight

society for many many years. Unfortunately the first flight society has been left out of this completely. They're the ones who year after year have come here arranged the flyovers arranged their speeches by by people prominent in aviation paying due respect to these two young men. They're out of it. It's a promotional effort that frankly I tired of six years ago when they first started. Well you were in fact and you were at the 25th anniversary. Yeah I think they're only two of us living who are still still alive who attended the 25th anniversary ceremonies. Now Wilbur would have been dead by then but Orville would have been around a Jameed Orville. Oh yeah. Yeah. What was that like? Tell us about that 25th anniversary. Well the actual ceremonies, the dinner and the speeches were held in a pavilion on Kitty Hawk Bay about midway between my

present home and the right memorial. We rode down in any kind of vehicle that we could bummer out with. I haven't arrived in the back of the pickup truck at eight years old being held in by a lovely lady named Amelia Earhart. Really? So you met Amelia Earhart? Yeah when I was eight. When you were eight. I looked all over the Pacific for when I was in the Marine Corps. Couldn't find any trace of her as others can't either. Yeah you're not alone. Well so that must have been that must have been quite an event and by as we heard earlier you know we talked about the Darrell Collins talking about the fact that it took quite a few years before people recognized this and turned it into an annual event but by by 25 years I think the country and certainly outer bankers recognized what it happened right? Yes and that was that was the year. That was the year that a man named W. O. Sanders who edited the independent newspaper in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Formed the Kill Devil Hills Memorial Association and there

are the ones who put on this 25th anniversary celebration. There was publicity about it and something's been done annually ever since then. Most of us we remember learning that you know we know that the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk and then we keep talking about Kill Devil Hills. Can you straighten out this confusion for us? Sure it's very simple. In 1900 and 193 the area where Kill Devil Hill is located was in what is known was known then as the Kitty Hawk post office district. So the post office Kitty Hawk post office was where the mayor was addressed to where the Wright Brothers came to. They haven't actually landed Wilbur landed first and then a vessel to be spent almost 24 hours on coming down from Elizabeth City and and came into Kitty Hawk Bay and actually came ashore in what is now my front yard. Oh

your house is right there. Wow. So my only claim to fame that in a million years. Well that's not bad. It would have been a lot better would have been a lot better if you had found a media though. Then you could quite a clue. Yeah but let me explain this Kitty Hawk. Kill Devil Hills. Kill Devil Hills too. Your report just came from Kill Devil Hills but they were at the base of Kill Devil Hill. I think I've explained why it was known as Kitty Hawk then because there was no community there except the life saving station. No people were living in what is now the town of Kill Devil Hills. However the very early maps showed in this area a group of sand hills called the Kill Devil Hills. I could go on forever about the various stories about why it's Kill Devil but anyway there was a series of hills. There still are several hills there. The big one was

always called Big Kill Devil Hill. They did a lot of their experimentation on another little hill called West Hill and then they finally came to Kill Devil Hill for the Glider experiments and the actual takeoff was from level ground to the north of Big Kill Devil Hill. So the confusion over Kill Devil Hill, Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk. I hope I have solved it but maybe I haven't. I know I think you have. And then later of course the area that where this geological formation, the hill itself, it also became a community with its own post office and its own... Well it's a municipality and it happens to be the largest municipality on the beach area. What about some of these names though? You say you have a lot of sort of myths about how they get their names but Kill Devil Hill, Kitty Hawk, Nags head where they come from. Well I have no idea. I can only tell you the myths and the stories and the one about Nags head is that

the bankers would lead a nag along the beach with a lantern hanging from its neck at night and luring ships in thinking that it was a safe harbor. Of course I've heard the same story in Barbettis. I've heard the same story in the Florida Keys and even Long Island. So that's the case with most of these stories. That's how about Kill Devil Hill or Kill Devil Hills? Well there are some dramatic ones but there was that seemed to indicate that this might have come from the Kill Beer, a bird, from something more mundane than the one about the devil attracting a man up to the top of Kill Devil Hills and trading his soul for a bag of money and burying him there. That's a lot better story though,

don't you think? I don't think so. I'm a historian. I prefer facts and I'm glad that Daryl Collins was able to do such a wonderful job this morning on giving the basic facts there. Well you've done a great... The Orville Rights historian Fred Kelly was a long time friend of mine and he told me 50 years or so ago that Orville had told him that they were having great trouble agreeing on some specific thing and the fact that they worked together as a team as why they were able to conquer flight instantly. And so they decided one day that they would step as all night long as necessary in order to find out to reach an agreement on that particular problem and they did step on night. And by the next morning, Cornelier Fred Kelly, Orville said that Wilbur had convinced him that Wilbur was right. Unfortunately in the process, he had

convinced Wilbur that he orville was right so they were just as damn far apart as ever. That is but thank you so very much. They had spent another night I guess. David Stick, thank you so very much. Thank you. David Stick is an historian and the author of The Outer Banks of North Carolina. We've been talking about what conditions were like when the Wright Brothers came here to Kill Devil Hills or Kitty Hawk whichever you'd like to call it back in 1903. Sandy Siemens joins us now to talk about what life was like on the outer is like on the outer banks of today. We have been talking about what the conditions were like when the Wright Brothers came here in 1903. Sandy Siemens is the editor of The Outer Banks Sentinel. Welcome. Thank you. Well we just heard David Stick historian talking about how he's not too happy with this particular festival, the Centennial Festival, the 100-year party that's going on out here are the Wright Brothers Memorial. He was saying it was too commercialized. Well I think that there are some who think that but actually it's it's commercial in today's standards just the way the 25th

anniversary was commercial in those standards. Saunders when he arranged to invite New Jersey investors down here to show them the area hoped that they would invest in the area and incidentally celebrate the first flight here sent letters out and and first of all only men were invited. They were supposed to get the the prettiest curls in the area to serve dinner to them in the tents. They had no vehicles out here or very few at the time so they ferried them across, brought over cars and towards the end of the event when they started going back to the ferry. Evidently the drivers were so excited they forgot to wait for passengers and a number of people were stranded here until they got to the ferry and realized they hadn't brought everyone back and so that was certainly a commercial venture as well as a memorial service. So have the Wright Brothers been tied in with the the development of Kill Devil Hills and the Kitty Hawk and the Outer Banks area? I think it's certainly a trump card to play in getting tourists here and if you get tourists in a location then certainly you

have development. Right right and how are things going with this year's celebration? We have been reading stories here in North Carolina for a couple of years now about there've been some difficulties in bringing this off this Centennial Festival. Well there's so many agencies involved and I think that whenever you have probably 20 different agencies involved you're going to have a difference of opinion. The past year and a half I think things have finally come together a little bit better. There was a change in the administration. LeBevins came into cultural resources. Larry Belly came here a superintendent. Ken Mann was named co-chair of the the first flight commission and I think between them they've added a little bit more focus and brought the focus back to Kill Devil Hills. There was there was a time when all the planning was in other places in the state and not necessarily in Deer County. I imagine that might not have gone over very well here then. No it didn't. How would you think it's shaking down now right now? The festival and how it's come off.

I think that the people coming in are very happy with what they see and what they're participating in. There are missteps but they don't know that. They don't know what they were supposed to expect and I think you have to give a little bit of credit to all these agencies. No one's ever been involved in this kind of event before with the security and the numbers of people and so it's new to everyone. Sandy Siemens is the editor of the Outer Bank Sentinel. It's a newspaper that covers this northeastern corner of North Carolina and we'll have more of our conversation with Sandy Siemens in just a moment. Also ahead a look at a little known part of the Outer Bank's history when it was home to thousands of freed slaves. All of that when our special coverage of the first flight continues stay with us. This is first flight special coverage. I'm Frank Stasho in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

And I'm Melinda Penn-Cava at Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks. We are talking with Sandy Siemens who is editor of the Outer Bank Sentinel. That's a newspaper that covers this part of North Carolina where the Wright Brothers first flew 100 years ago. Safe to say Sandy Siemens that the Wright Brothers might not recognize this place if they were to be transported back here right now. Oh I can't imagine that they would recognize it. There is a hill. There is still a hill. There were several at one time. Big hills of sand. They were they were sand dunes. Sand dunes essentially. And then at one point the National Park Service decided to stabilize it so that they could put a monument because you don't want a monument on shifting sand. It's not a good idea. So but what the area around here when they were here it was as I've seen in the photographs and described earlier it's as far as the I could see it was

just sand. And now you could describe what people would find. Well it was very sparsely populated and there were communities all along the banks but but they were very small communities. The transportation out here was was often oxen. Everything had to come through a list of the city by by boat and and mail launch. It was a quite different time and but the focus of people's efforts really haven't changed that much over the years. There was an attempt to bring in tourists although they were calling them clients for their guide services for commercial hunting. There were a lot of of people here from the fish drummers from the Fulton Fish Market and from Baltimore and they would come down and meet the fishermen at the docks and mark their numbers on their boxes to show that that they were the ones that received the commission on that. There were a number of schools there I think there were 19 white schools and three for black children at the time the right brothers were here but but usually the the population of those

schools was like less than two dozen for each one. And we should say you know a lot of this because your newspaper the Outer Bank Sentinel is putting out a commemorative issue that takes information from 1903 and puts out a newspaper as though that were you've write it in the present tense and it's on the stands here tomorrow. That's right. Yeah tell us some of the stories that you're printing in this commemorative issue. Well one of the lead stories is the the keeper of the poor house being fired. At that time the grand jury was charged with inspecting public buildings and when they went to inspect the poor house he tried to sell them scuburnog wine so they found out that he had been selling it to the inmates. The the market that year for fish was very good but the market for waterfowl they were selling geese for 50 cents a piece they were selling pairs of canvas back for 250 a piece and if you extrapolate those numbers into today's prices it was an extraordinary amount of money coming into a very poor area. So these would have been the stories that

would be competing for headlines with what the right brothers were doing here. That's right. That's right. And when the right brothers accomplished what they did in 1903 the initial reports got that story wrong. Harry Moore was the one to break the story. The right brothers really didn't want that to happen. They wanted their father to be able to call the papers in Ohio first and but someone managed to get a wire to Harry to to let him know that they had finally flown. And Harry Moore was with which paper? The Virginian pilot. Harry Moore got just about every single detail incorrect other than they flew. So the Virginian pilot was the one to break the story and I think the Cincinnati inquire came out two days later after the bishop their father called them. And so and the Virginian pilot later had an issue a correction we should say to say you know we got the information. I would thank you. So the stories that are making news here now. Do you see any similarities between what you were finding when you went back

to those records to put out this commemorative issue? Actually there were a number of issues that that really hadn't changed that much and I thought one of the funny things is that 1903 is when they decided that they had to replace the the courthouse and that's the one standing in Manio right now and this past year they dedicated the New Justice Center with a new courthouse. Bidding contracts for schools was a major issue at that time and had created some heartburn and we're certainly dealing with those same issues today. Well Sandy Siemens is the editor of the Outer Bank Sentinel and she is joining us here in Kill Devil Hills talking about then and now of news going on Sandy Siemens editor of the Outer Bank Sentinel. And many of us are familiar with the famous bits of Outer Bank's history. The story of Virginia Dare for instance the first English a child born on American soil and then the tale of the lost colony. A group of settlers who mysteriously disappeared and whose fate remains

unknown to this day. And of course there's the tale of those two brothers from Ohio who sought out the sands and the wide open spaces of Kitty Hawk but there are other less famous stories. For instance there was a short-lived social experiment that was called the Friedman's Colony. It all happened during the Civil War on nearby Roanoke Island when Union forces were occupying that place and runaway slaves sotted out as a place that they could be free. Author Patricia Klick is with us now to talk about the Friedman's Colony. She is author of Time Full of Child, the Roanoke Friedman's Colony. Welcome Patricia Klick. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Well this all happened as the Civil War was underway. As I mentioned the federal troops had taken early in the war. In 1862 had taken on Roanoke Island. Slaves who'd run away found a refuge there. How unusual was that? Well it was not that unusual to the extent that wherever there were union camps of slaves in the area fled to them assuming that they would be in some sort of transitional stage. At the initially they were called

contraband after General Benjamin Butler at Fortressman Road declared that they would be contraband of war considering that they could be used by the southern troops if they weren't allowed to become part of the union occupation. So there were probably at least a hundred camps ranging from Washington DC down the east coast up the Gulf up into Illinois on the Mississippi. I think what distinguished this one was that initially it was a camp established by the Friedman themselves but later in 1863 it was officially designated as a colony and there were very few of those. And this is different from other stories we hear of runaway slaves during the Civil War. It went to places like Ohio other northern states as the the end spot of the underground railroad. Right this was actually this is in the south. In this south during the war after the Battle of Roanoke Island which was in the early part of February 1862 the union took over the island and maintained an occupation there until 1867. Slaves fled from the mainland as well as a few from

the island. There were some southern troops there already in occupation before the Battle of course and they had slaves with them. So this was an attempt to set up a colony then and how did it work? Well initially of course as I said there was just a kind of a camp with unsanitary conditions and then when the government took it over really under the auspices of the army there was actually a superintendent and the idea was in his mind and his name was Harsh James. His idea was to create a place for people to make a transition to freedom. He had some definite ideas. He was an abolitionist, a Protestant evangelical minister, a chaplain with the union army and he felt that this was a place for people to be educated to become somewhat self-supporting. He believed in land ownership all the sorts of things that when we consider Protestant evangelical abolitionists to believe. But it only lasted a little while a couple of years maybe. Well it really lasted and officially was over in 1867 and it was not, it never met the expectations of

Harsh James or many of the other missionaries who believed that there would be domestic manufacturers as shad fishery all sorts of ways for the people to maintain their own livelihood that just didn't happen primarily because of the weather and because also most of the able-bodied men joined the union army as part of the U.S. colored troops. So what happened then to these people who had it one time been slaves, then runaway slaves, then freed men and women, did a lot of them leave this area, did some stay? Are you talking about after the war? Yeah, well after after this failed. After after it failed there were at least 3500 on the island which is pretty difficult to imagine today but they had brought avenues and streets laid out much like a New England village but after it failed many of the ones who had come in from the mainland went back to where they had come from working for their former owners as freed people but some stayed on the island. We know that in the 1870 census there were at least 300 free blocks on the island

and living in 60 households and of those 60 households at least 14 already own their homes which is a pretty amazing achievement if you think about it. I understand that Darrell Collins who we spoke with earlier who is with the National Park Service here and the historian at the Wright Brothers Memorial his family descended from. Yes Darrell is a descendant and I would assume that quite a few of the people who helped to build the monument initially that hear the Wright Memorial were descendants as well. I know one of the early supervisors of that or he had some role and it was Mr. William Simmons from Aronok Island who was a descendant and he also was a great historian of his own community. He was a great backer of the things that went on on Aronok Island and the first Black Commissioner in Mania. We should also explain that here on the Northern Outer Banks we had the first life-saving stations that was men who would be there prepared to go out to see to rescue ships that were wrecked and so forth and also at P. Island there was the first all-black life-saving

service. And that in fact had a connection with Aronok Island Friedman's colony at least intentionally. Most of the men who served there in fact I think all of the first crew hit which was headed by Richard Etheridge had been soldiers and they had left their families or relatives in the Friedman's colony during the war. So in the 1870s when the government established life-saving stations these men had priority because they already had some government service plus I think they had some booster ism down here in support of them and after serving in what they called checker board stations were blacks and whites remixed then in 1880 the first all-black station was open with P. Island under the the the keeper Richard Etheridge and his surfman who were as I said all I think pretty much all former soldiers who had family connections to the colony. So there had been a desegregated life-saving service before there was a segregated. Yes and I think there always was a little bit less segregation on the on the outer banks but if you read some of the stories it seems like once the U.S. government got

involved there seemed to be more segregation because these men actually worked beside of each other fishing, fouling what they called progging which is served looking for things that had come in on the ocean whatever together and many of them had close relationships they grew up together but I think it was the realization then out in the post-war period that something had changed and certainly you know that something was freedom which set the the the two in a slightly different situation that they had been before. Well Patricia click thanks for being with us. Thank you I really enjoyed this. Patricia click is associate professor of technology culture and communication at the University of Virginia and she is a part-time resident of the outer banks. Her book is called Time Full of Trial the Roanoke Friedman's Colony 1862 to 1867 and we are joined once again here at Kill Devil Hills by Sandy Siemens who is editor of the outer bank sentinel. Sandy you were hearing what Patricia click was talking about with this history of the Friedman's Colony bring us up to speed with how things are today in terms of race relations and this northern part of the outer

banks in North Carolina. I think it's reached a very interesting time that people are having to stop and and look at their reactions. We have probably less than 10 percent black population here. The Hispanic population would probably exceed that if we could get a proper count on it. Right now it's showing up in the addition of a new school out here and there are some disagreements over where the line should be drawn so that all the beach children can go to this new school and not go to Manio. There's been claims that by their children going to Manio that it's going to devalue their property and at first the conversation was that that school was not up to par to this new one. However there's some in the community now that are saying that it's more of a racial issue because the school in the beach will basically have no people of color. The one in Manio would would have all of them. What did you find when you were putting together your

1903 commemorative issue for this 100th anniversary of the right brothers flight when you found information from 1903 and you created this eight page newspaper. Did you find any information along these lines about on the schools and on race issues here in in in Kitty Hawk area in the Northern Outer Banks? They showed up in very subtle ways. One of it was in the school funding and you could see where there was a substantially more money spent on the white schools and the black schools. One of the interesting things was the pay rates for white men which was more than white women which was more than black men which was more than then black women teachers and so it was there. There were subtleties. What are you looking for as you cover this festival here or as you've taken stock of the right brothers here on the Outer Banks? I think one of the amazing things is the interest. We've been getting about 300 emails a day from all over the

world for people seeking information and these are really true aviation buffs and as I walked around today I noticed that there's a lot of people with jackets on with aviation clubs or airplane manufacturing companies. I think that there are some people here who've come just because it's an event and their event goers but I think the great majority of them really have a love and an interest in it and I think they're in all of the right brothers as they should be. Did you always have an interest in it before you started covering this? I covered the military for years and at every opportunity I was up in planes. I'm afraid of height but I love planes. What's with that? How do you explain that? I don't have a clue. So what exhibit is it that you're looking to see here? NASA. Okay. Yeah. I think when you think of where they were and being thrilled at being in the air for just a few seconds and then you see where NASA is now with their program that's just

truly amazing. Well Sandy Siemens thank you so much. Thank you. Sandy Siemens is the editor of the Outer Bank Sentinel and just a programming note you may have been hearing planes flying over us today during our broadcast. We are told that it was the recon bomber flyover in the last half hour if you heard those jets passing over and for today that's our special first flight coverage. I'm Melinda Pencava in Kill Devil Hills. And I'm Frank Stasjo. We leave you with some music of the Outer Banks from Molasses Creek an award-winning bluegrass band from Oak Rock Coke, North Carolina. They're going to perform tomorrow by the way as part of the first flight. Festivities at Kill Devil Hills. It's a tune inspired by life on Oak Rock Coke called Feeding the Ponies. Support for the first flight coverage comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. .

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