It was a time when the Beach was just beginning to catch on as a resort destination. Up until then, the lifeblood of Princess Anne County had been the port of Norfolk, with farmers making the long haul to market over shell roads by horse and wagon.
That was all about to change; what would one day truly drive the economy of this sprawling county was not so much its farms but its coastline.
A little background. When one canal company president remarked in 1871 that the area that would one day become Virginia Beach was “one of the most lovely, healthy, and attractive places in the world for a summer resort,” it was one of the first public signs that anyone knew this, according to Stephen Mansfield in his book on Princess Anne history.
It was then just six years after the Civil War ended and the region was still reeling. Needless to say, Confederate money was next to worthless. Jobs were scarce and farms, now without slaves, were failing. Residents were packing up and heading west. But some were imagining a different world, now within their grasp, and it wouldn’t take long for the beginnings of a new dawn to glow on the horizon.
Still, the Atlantic shoreline was mostly farmland that ended in pine forests and dunes. And except for life-saving stations, built six miles apart, there was barely a house or building.
In the 1880s, however, the newly formed Seaside Hotel and Land Company started buying several thousand acres along five miles of oceanfront. The company had close ties to another enterprise, the Norfolk and Virginia Beach Railroad and Improvement Company – and the two ultimately merged. In January 1883, work was begun on a rail line that would run from Norfolk over a trestle bridge at Broad Creek and through farmlands and timber stands to the beach.
By July, the first of several thousand visitors were dancing on the floor of a new pavilion, wading into the ocean and eating at picnic tables. The name “Virginia Beach,” then only a footnote in the railroad company’s charter, soon took hold.
The following year, 1884, saw the opening of the 60-room Virginia Beach Hotel. With newfangled gas lighting and such, it was considered one of the most luxurious hotels in America. It soon offered a host of outdoor activities, including golf and tennis, band concerts and operettas.
It wasn’t long before the rich, famous and powerful, like Alexander Graham Bell and President Benjamin Harrison, were disporting themselves at the seashore and wealthy Norfolk families were buying up lots and erecting summer retreats. One of them, with 22 rooms and 14-inch-thick walls, would eventually be called the DeWitt Cottage, which stands today as the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum.
By 1897, there were a few dozen year-round residents and they began lobbying for town status. Finally, in March 1906, a charter was granted. The town council met in what had been the Virginia Beach Hotel, refurbished and renamed the Princess Anne.
Sadly, in 1907, a kitchen fire burned the hotel to the ground. Heroic efforts, including a bucket brigade, by property owners and hotel guests saved nearby houses like the ones in the photo.
It would be 20 years before a comparable hotel, the Cavalier, was built. But it was clear that the region was gearing up for a new century – and one day slightly more stylish beach attire.
Photo:These beachgoers, at the Oceanfront in 1896, were probably having more fun than they let on. Virginian-Pilot photo.
