Assateague: History of a dynamic barrier island

Assateague Island is one of Maryland's greatest natural treasures. It is home to a plethora of unique animal species, and also boasts a rich history that dates back centuries.

Before European settlers colonized the Eastern Shore, there were many Native American tribes that called this area home. The Algonquin tribe was the largest on the Shore and gave rise to other tribes throughout the region, including the Assateague, Nanticoke and Choptank tribes.

The Assateague tribe lived on the Eastern Shore of the Delmarva Peninsula, calling its many swamps, marshes, forests and fields home. The Assateague tribe would use Assateague Island during the spring and summer months as a fishing and hunting ground, but never built a year-round village on the island.

By the 17th century, European settlers had begun to colonize the Eastern Shore and started to displace local Native American tribes. These settlers eventually dislodged the Assateague tribe and started using Assateague Island for their own gains. Settlers would use the island as a grazing area for livestock. Today's wild horses are believed to be descendants of the horses that were left on the island to graze during this period.­

By 1833, Assateague lighthouse had been built in response to the numerous shipwrecks that occurred from shifting sandbars near the island, including President Benjamin Harrison running his yacht aground about 75 yards off the island in 1891. A small village, only 225 people at its maximum, was established on the island during the 1800s. The villagers would fish, grow livestock and farm on very small plots. By the 1900s, the village was in decline and eventually became abandoned in favor of a village on the Virginia side of the island, Chincoteague.

In 1933, there was a massive hurricane that created the Ocean City Inlet between Fenwick and Assateague islands. This Inlet created a convenient shipping channel between the coastal bays and the Atlantic Ocean, so it was hardened with jetties in order to keep it open indefinitely.

In 1950, a group of investors started planning a new development on Assateague, called Ocean Beach. They soon had a main road built, called "Baltimore Boulevard," along with marked plots for several homes. There was another company called Atlantic Ocean Estates Inc., which owned land on the northern end of Assateague. They were planning to develop this land and break it into plots for new homeowners.

Atlantic Ocean Estates saw the need for a bridge connecting the Delmarva Peninsula and Assateague Island, so it donated 540 acres of land on the island to the state of Maryland. The reason behind this was so if Maryland had land on the island it wanted to convert into a state park, it would need to build a bridge in order to access it.

Construction of the bridge began in 1961 and cost the state of Maryland about $1.5 million.

By the early 1960s, development of Assateague was beginning to pick up steam. However, in March 1962, there was a massive storm that hit Assateague and caused serious damage.

After nearly five years of intense debate as to whether Assateague should become a national park, the first piece of private land was sold to the federal government in 1965. During the next several years, many private landowners sold their plots to the government for financial compensation.

The federal government continued to buy land on Assateague until it controlled almost all of Assateague Island by 1982. The state of Maryland ended up controlling 540 acres of the island for a state park, and Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge was already established.

Assateague Island is still divided to this day; the vast amount of the island is now Assateague Island National Seashore, but the Maryland state park and the Chincoteague wildlife refuge still operate on their much smaller land partitions.

Assateague Island National Seashore has about 2.1 million visitors annually, with Assateague State Park and Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge each attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

Harrison Jackson is the Coastal Stewards Coordinator for the Coastal Bays Program.