The Independent

Dare Eager To
Join Advocates
Coast Highway

The movement of a delegation of road enthusiasts from various sections, including Norfolk, Virginia and Florida Keys, to have a coastal road from Norfolk to the tip of Florida may be an original move in so far as group action has been started, but the Dare County Chamber of Commerce has been advocating such a highway for sometime.

A short-line boulevard from point to point named would traverse 85 miles of Dare County's coastland, and it would connect with the now assured Manns Harbor-Stumpy Point road across Roanoke Island and into and through Hyde County to Washington and New Bern and other points that skirt the coastland, yet are inland through one of North Carolina's most beautiful sections of lowlands.

D. B. Fearing, secretary of the local chamber of Commerce, wrote this week to the sponsors of such a road, according to reports of the Myrtle Beach meeting last week, joining heartily with them in any action chosen to bring about the starting of work on this coastal road at an early date.

Such a problem is not one up to the states through which it passes, Mr. Fearing believes, but is one that involves the federal government and one that should be sought through federal aid. Action by the Dare County Chamber of Commerce will be centered toward members of Congress Mr. Fearing says, and he will urge that other towns and sections do the same.

The coastal road, as proposed, will pass through several states now boasting of strength in both branches of the U. S. Congress. Senator Bailey is really a pioneer in the idea of a coastal highway, and he proposes to fight for it. Some weeks ago, while seated around the supper table at the Tranquil House in Manteo, Senator Joseph T. Robinson, Senator J. W. Bailey, Speaker J. W. Byrns, Congressman Lindsay C. Warren, and several others told Mr. Fearing specifically that they thought a federal coastal highway from Cape Henry to Cape Hatteras would be a proper expenditure for many reasons, principally coastal defense. The Independent representative was present at the conference.

Such a road is not a dream of the far distant future, as Mr. Fearing sees it, but will probably be started within two years. He believes that the movement for a coastal highway from Norfolk to Florida Keys will add strength to the possibility of an earlier start than if just for a road from Cape Henry to Cape Hatteras. With concerted action, he says, this road could be started within a year from federal funds that are now available.

Mr. Fearing says he believes the state will give Dare County the long-sought Stumpy Point-Manns Harbor road before next summer, that it will be started within sixty days. Chairman Capus M. Waynick who has shown a fine disposition of cooperation with the condition of people in this section by reason of no roads, is in Dare County this week visiting at Stumpy Point, Manns Harbor and Roanoke Island. An announcement is expected from him before he leaves.