Station Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
USLSS Station #13, Sixth District
Coast Guard Station #173
|
Location:
|
On beach, 1 mile east by south of Kill Devil Hills, and 12-1/4 miles north northwest of Bodie Island Light; 36-00' 10"N x 75-39' 40"W
|
|
Date of Conveyance
|
1878
|
|
Station Built:
|
1878
|
|
Fate:
|
Turned over to the GSA in 1964
|
Remarks:
The crew from this station assisted Orville and Wilbur Wright in their historic first heavier-than-air flight on 17 December 1903.
Keepers:
Jesse Partridge was appointed on December 9, 1878 and resigned from the service on September 28, 1899.
Jesse E. Ward was appointed on September 29, 1899 and was still serving in 1915 when the Life-Saving Service merged with the Revenue Cutter Service.
Photographs:
Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving Station. No original caption/date/photo number; photograph by Wilbur Wright, probably 1902. Original negative now in the Library of Congress' collection.
Kill Devil Hills crew, circa 1903, from left to right: Jesse E. Ward, William Thomas Beacham, unidentified crewman, John T. Daniels, and W. S. Dough.
Original caption reads: “Kill Devil Hill Coast Guard Station,” no date/photo number; photographer unknown. Probably late 1930s.
Sources:
Station History File, CG Historian’s Office
Dennis L. Noble & Michael S. Raynes. “Register of the Stations and Keepers of the U.S. Life-Saving Service.” Unpublished manuscript, compiled circa 1977, CG Historian’s Office collection.
Ralph Shanks, Wick York & Lisa Woo Shanks. The U.S. Life-Saving Service: Heroes, Rescues and Architecture of the Early Coast Guard. Petaluma, CA: Costaño Books, 1996.
U.S. Treasury Department: Coast Guard. Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers and Cadets and Ships and Stations of the United States Coast Guard, July 1, 1941. Washington, DC: USGPO, 1941.