Buckroe Beach is a neighborhood in the

independent city An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province). Historical precursors In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states ...

Hampton, Virginia Hampton is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 137,148 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, seve ...

. It lies just north of

Fort Monroe Fort Monroe is a former military installation in Hampton, Virginia, at Old Point Comfort, the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, United States. It is currently managed by partnership between the Fort Monroe Authority for the Commonwealth o ...

on the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

. One of the oldest recreational areas in the state, it was long located in the former

Elizabeth City County Elizabeth City County was a county in southeastern Virginia from 1634 until 1952 when it was merged into the city of Hampton. Originally created in 1634 as Elizabeth River Shire, it was one of eight shires created in the Virginia Colony by or ...

near the downtown area of the lost town of

Phoebus Apollo is one of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, ...

prior to their consolidation with Hampton in 1952.

History

In 1619, the "Buck Roe" Plantation was designated for public use for the newly arrived English settlers of the

Virginia Company of London The Virginia Company of London (sometimes called "London Company") was a Division (business), division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for British colonization of the Americas, colonizing the east coast of North America between 34th ...

. In 1620, the London Company sent Frenchmen there to teach the

colonists A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among the first settli ...

grape and

silkworm ''Bombyx mori'', commonly known as the domestic silk moth, is a moth species belonging to the family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of '' Bombyx mandarina'', the wild silk moth. Silkworms are the larvae of silk moths. The silkworm is of ...

culture. By 1637, however, Buck Roe

Plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

had joined the rest of the colony as a

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

field. Buckroe was used as a fishing camp until after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. At the urging of community leader Harrison Phoebus, the

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis Potter Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Rich ...

built by

Collis Huntington Collis Potter Huntington (October 22, 1821 – August 13, 1900) was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker) who invested ...

extended its tracks to the area in 1882. A

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

for summer visitors was opened by Civil War widow of Joseph Bowers Herbert, Mrs. Mary Ann Dobbins Herbert, 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. In 1898, several African-American businessmen purchased a beachfront for

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

vacationers next to Buckroe Beach, naming it

Bay Shore Beach Bay Shore Beach was a beach that existed adjacent to Buckroe Beach in Hampton, Virginia in the 20th century. It was founded in 1898 by several African-American businessmen. The beach was one of the most popular resort and vacation destinations i ...

& Resort. This amusement park and vacation destination rivaled the popularity of Buckroe Beach during the era of

racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...

The amusement park and adjacent public beach were popular destinations for social outings in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Until

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the C&O had summer excursion service to Buckroe, using its tracks and trolley tracks from Phoebus to Buckroe. Due to declining revenue because of competition from

Busch Gardens Williamsburg Busch Gardens Williamsburg (formerly Busch Gardens Europe and Busch Gardens: The Old Country) is a amusement park in James City County near Williamsburg, Virginia, United States, located approximately northwest of Virginia Beach. The park w ...

and the developments in air conditioning, the amusement park closed in 1985 and was torn down in 1991. However, the

Buckroe Beach Carousel Buckroe Beach Carousel, also known as Philadelphia Toboggan Company Number Fifty and the Hampton Carousel, is a historic carousel operated by the Hampton History Museum in Hampton, Virginia. It was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and i ...

and its Bruder

band organ Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary * Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...

were preserved and relocated to the downtown Hampton waterfront area where it is a popular attraction. The only remaining relic from the amusement park that is still standing at Buckroe is the functioning lighthouse from the miniature golf course. The popular Buckroe Beach fishing pier was destroyed during

Hurricane Isabel Hurricane Isabel was a Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that struck the east coast of the United States in September 2003. The ninth named storm, fifth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the season, Isabel formed in the eastern Atlantic ...

in 2003. The pier was rebuilt by the city of Hampton and opened for business on May 30, 2009. The pier is known for its

cobia The cobia (''Rachycentron canadum'') (, ) is a species of marine carangiform ray-finned fish, the only extant representative of the genus '' Rachycentron'' and the family Rachycentridae. Its other common names include black kingfish, black ...

fishing, which has rivaled with the Grandview fishing pier for the most catches. Many fishermen can be found here on a busy summer day.

Population

Buckroe Beach was defined as a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(then termed an unincorporated place) at the

1950 United States census The 1950 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 151,325,798, an increase of 14.5 percent over the 131,669,275 persons enumerated during the 1940 census. This was t ...

with a population of 1,977.1950 Census of Population
" U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on August 19, 2010. In 1952 Hampton consolidated with Elizabeth City County (including Phoebus) thus making Buckroe Beach a neighborhood of the city.

References

External links

* {{coord, 37, 02, 35, N, 76, 17, 36, W, type:city_region:US-VA, display=title Neighborhoods in Hampton, Virginia Beaches of Virginia Former census-designated places in Virginia Landforms of Hampton, Virginia Articles containing video clips Seaside resorts in Virginia