Forged in a Hurricane: The Creation of Assateague Island National Seashore

Home to only flocks of seabirds and the famed wild horses that have lived among the dunes and wetlands since the 1600s, a trip to Assateague is a trip back to what President Lyndon Johnson called a glimpse of the world, as God really made it. But like so many other national parks, this glance back to the time before mankind was nearly lost. Assateague Island was ultimately saved from development by the hard work of dedicated preservationists who recognized its value and worked for years to preserve it for future generations. Which is a common story among many of our national parks, but unlike other parks, the creation of Assateague wasn't just the result of grassroots advocates, visionary legislature, or intrepid newspaper reports. These were all, of course, key, but they had a major force boosting their agenda.

A force so destructive and so powerful that the developers and moneyed interests had no choice but to acquiesce and make room for our nation's third national seashore. I'm Jason Epperson. This is the America's National Parks Podcast. And today, the story of how Assateague Island National Seashore, the crown jewel of the Atlantic coast, was forged by the most destructive hurricane of the 20th century.

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Barrier Islands that appear on a map off the coast are generally considered a permanent geographic feature, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Barrier Islands, like Assateague, are like living organisms and have a natural, almost fluid life cycle that causes their boundaries and contours to shift seasonally. During the winter months, when harsh winds blow in from the Atlantic, sand from the shore, is deposited in offshore sandbars or under the waves, sometimes drastically changing the island's topography, or revealing lost maritime treasures like long-forgotten shipwrecks. As the weather warms in the spring and summer, gentle wave action replenishes the depleted beaches, causing still more changes to the shape of the coastline. Generally, this process is gentle, but when these forces align in just the right way, under the right conditions, they can cause more drastic changes, even submerging large portions of the island under feet of water.

The fluid nature of its boundaries is one of the many secrets that Assateague Island conceals, a secret that was almost totally unknown because for hundreds of years, the island sat virtually uninhabited.

Separated from the mainland by Chincoteague Bay, the island was only lightly inhabited and never home to more than a few small villages. Towns with names like Green Run, Pope Island, and North Beach grew to support the island's small seafood economy, the lone Coast Guard station, or a handful of now-vanished resorts. Island residents had to be self-reliant by growing their own food, lighting their homes with fish oil, and even making their own clothing from the wool of the sheep they raised. The rustic lifestyle wasn't easy, so very few people knew that, despite Assateague Island existing as a seemingly permanent fixture for hundreds of years, it occasionally morphed. By the 1930s, these small, isolated villages, along with this critical homegrown knowledge, began to disappear as they were replaced by larger, more expansive plans for permanent habitation.

Schemes to develop the island were present as early as the 1930s, but they really didn't begin to build steam until a man named Leon Ackerman arrived on the scene, a decorated World War II veteran with a drive and vision for seeing what could be instead of only what was. Ackerman was able to convince powerful financial investors from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. to help him acquire 15 miles of Assateague Island in order to build a dream vacation community that he christened Ocean Beach. Ackerman reasoned that, since the island was less than a half-day's drive from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and the nation's capital, it would be easy to successfully market his resort community to metropolitan families looking for space, fresh air, and escape from city life. His efforts were very successful thanks to a barnstorming marketing campaign that had him traveling up and down the east coast of the U.S.

selling his ambitious plan. The opportunity he shared with potential buyers included space for hotels, shopping centers, marinas, and, of course, summer homes – enough for nearly 6,000 residents. By the early 1960s, over 3,200 of the lots had been sold. A few homes began to dot the sandy expanse, and the community's main road, Baltimore Avenue, was soon paved right down the center of the island. People eagerly looked forward to moving into their seaside residences in the near future.

But under the surface of Ackerman's sparkling vision, there were glaring problems.

Assateague had no infrastructure, there was no sewer system, no running water, and even more problematic was that the only access to the island was via a small ferry. Ackerman was confident that these issues could be overcome, even going so far as to donate a plot of land to the state in exchange for building a bridge. But the engineering issues he faced paled in comparison to the problems that locals with knowledge of the island's tendencies tried to warn him about. Area residents like William Green, who was already a committed preservationist looking to save the island from development, tried to raise the alarm regarding the tendency for most of Assateague Island, including areas Ackerman had zoned for homesites, to flood as part of the barrier island's natural life cycle. Green felt so strongly that investors were being misled that he began an annual pilgrimage to Annapolis, where he continually petitioned the state legislature to preserve the island rather than allow new development.

Despite his repeated warnings, construction continued unabated. Unless some act of God intervened, Assateague Island seemed destined to become yet another resort community. But God did intervene, and in a very, very big way.

On March 4th of 1962, two abnormally large and powerful pressure systems began to form off the coast at the same time that a higher-than-normal spring tide began to roll ashore. Residents off the coastal towns near Assateague Island weren't overly concerned when they saw this, assuming that this storm, like most others, would simply brush against the coast and blow back out to sea. Few of them thought evacuation was necessary, but as the dark clouds turned day into night and abnormally powerful winds began picking up, they realized too late that this was no ordinary end-of-winter storm. The entire Atlantic seaboard was about to get slammed by one of the most devastating nor'easters of the 20th century.

The storm, stretching from the Carolinas all the way to the northern end of New England, was the largest that had ever been recorded up to that point. And its size was only matched by its intensity. Registering a Category 5, the highest rating possible on the cyclone scale, the storm was so massive that its effects were felt not just along the coast, but hundreds of miles beyond as well. Snow fell in Alabama. The temperature plummeted to below freezing.

in Florida. The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which sits more than 300 miles from the ocean, recorded nearly 10% of its annual snowfall in a single day. These events were unprecedented and problematic, but paled in comparison to what people living near the ocean experienced. From Portland to Charleston, storm surge and winds devastated coastal communities, as five consecutive high tides bolstered by the storm washed over coastal towns and cities, carrying mountains of sand into roads and submerging homes in feet of water.

The entire five days became colloquially known as the Ash Wednesday Storm, since activity reached its height during the Christian High Holiday of the same name on March 7th.

While the entire Atlantic coast suffered extensive damage, with the final price tag registering north of $200 million, the effects on Ackerman's future resort town could only be described as total annihilation. The storm parked itself over Assateague Island and pummeled it for 36 hours straight. Cars were buried in five feet of sand. Houses were torn from their foundations and tossed into the sea. And almost the entirety of the island was submerged under six feet of seawater for days after.

When the skies finally cleared on March 9th, the few roads and homes on Assateague Island were almost totally buried or gone. Some homes that had been built were rolled over on their sides. Power lines had been ripped down and totally submerged under feet of sand, and the island's lone ferry was lifted out of the water and tossed several feet onto the shore. The devastation was so absolute that it rocked the psyche of many future residents, causing some to reassess their investment and look for a way out.

Some ocean beach landowners were more than happy to divest themselves of their flooded properties, selling them to the federal government well below their original price as quickly as they could. In some cases, the lots they paid for had been totally reclaimed by the ocean, forcing them to take the federal payout of one dollar for a lot that had cost them hundreds and hundreds. However, despite the situation proving William Green's observation regarding the island being unfit for permanent human habitation, a group of committed owners and developers pushed back, hoping to recoup their losses and rebuild Ocean Beach. They lobbied hard for federal dollars to rebuild the city, while railing against any attempt at the state and national level seeking to preserve it. Despite recent events showing that building on the island would be foolhardy, they claimed that turning the island into a park was actually much more foolish, as it would turn into nothing more than a barren wilderness, making it useful only for bird watchers.

But preservationists felt the wind shifting in their favor. The Ash Wednesday storm had demonstrated what locals like Green had known all along. Even Leon Ackerman himself eventually resigned that preservation was a better idea than development, abandoning his participation in the Ocean Beach scheme and moving on to other projects. The efforts of William Green and others like him to put the evidence from the hurricane in front of congressional eyes helped pressure the government to preserve the island. Their work came to fruition thanks to Secretary of the Interior, Stuart Udall, who used his influence to ferry a bill through Congress that was signed into law by President Johnson in September of that year.

And just like that, the last undeveloped stretch of Atlantic coastline between Massachusetts and North Carolina was designated a national park and protected for all time. At the signing, Johnson commented that clear water and warm sandy beaches are a nation's real treasure, something that visitors to Assateague today surely agree with. Today. the park is a coastal oasis enjoyed by millions of visitors who are attracted to the unspoiled views and looking for some ocean life. There's plenty of sand to set a blanket on, including places where you can even drive your vehicle right onto the beach.

Many people are attracted to the famed horses that reside there. Just make sure you give these wild animals the space and respect that they deserve. While the number of trails are limited, there are a series of short hikes that allow you to visit the dune, marsh, and forest ecosystems that make up the park. In fact, one of them takes you through the last traces of Ackerman's Ocean Beach Resort, where the remains of Baltimore Avenue, the town's main drag, is still visible and accessible. While it was originally intended to be used as a main automotive thoroughfare, it has instead found a new use as a convenient place for seabirds to crack open mussels, crabs, and clams.

This episode of America's National Parks was hosted by me, Jason Epperson, and written by James Fester. If you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a rating and a review. If you're new here, make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get new episodes delivered right to your feed. If you're looking for photos and tips about visiting national parks, check out our America's National Parks Facebook group, and if you're interested in RV travel, we hope you'll also check out the RV Miles podcast and YouTube channel. Today's show was sponsored by RV Share.

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