Buckroe Beach, Virginia

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The old "Light House" at Buckroe Beach was built as a part of the amusement park .

Buckroe Beach is one of the oldest recreational areas in Virginia. Long located in Elizabeth City County, Virginia near the downtown area of the lost town of Phoebus, Virginia, in modern times, it is located in the Buckroe section of the independent city of Hampton adjacent to Fort Monroe and Old Point Comfort. It fronts the mouth of Hampton Roads at the Chesapeake Bay.

[edit] History

In 1619, the "Buck Roe" (sic) Plantation was designated for public use for the newly-arrived English settlers of the Virginia Company of London. In 1620, the London Company sent Frenchmen there to teach the colonists grape and silkworm culture. By 1637, however, the plantation had joined the rest of the colony as a tobacco field.

Buckroe was used as a fishing camp until after the American Civil War. At the urging of community leader Harrison Phoebus, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway built by Collis Huntington extended it tracks to the area in 1882. A boarding house for summer visitors was opened in 1883, and the next year a public bath house was built and tourists were brought in horse drawn carriages. In 1897, a local entrepreneur extended his electric trolley car line to Buckroe, opened a hotel, a pavilion for dancing and an amusement park.

The amusement park and adjacent public beach were popular destinations for social outings in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Although the amusement park closed and was torn down in the 1980s, the famous carousel was preserved and relocated to the waterfront area of nearby downtown Hampton, where it is a popular attraction. Despite the loss of a popular fishing pier during Hurricane Isabel in 2003, and plans for a condominium development, Buckroe Beach continues to be a public recreational area.