Cape Hatteras Light is located on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks in the town of Buxton, North Carolina, and is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The lighthouse’s semi-unique pattern makes it easy to recognize and famous. It is often ranked high on lists of most beautiful, and famous lighthouses in the US. Its 210-foot height makes it the tallest brick lighthouse structure in the United States and 2nd in the world. Located in the Outer Banks, a group of barrier islands on the North Carolina coast that separate the Atlantic Ocean from the coastal sounds and inlets. Atlantic currents in this area made for excellent travel for ships, except in the area just offshore at Cape Hatteras. The large number of ships that ran aground because of shifting sandbars gave this area the nickname ""Graveyard of the Atlantic."" It led the U.S. Congress to authorize the construction of the Cape Hatteras Light. The original Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was constructed in 1802. At the behest of mariners and officers of the U.S. Navy, Congress appropriated funds to construct a new beacon at Cape Hatteras in 1868. Completed in just under two years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the new Cape Hatteras lighthouse completed in 1870 was the tallest brick lighthouse tower in the world. It was 200 feet above the ground and the focal height of the light was 208 feet above the water. The light displays a highly visible black and white diagonal daymark paint scheme. It shares similar markings with the St. Augustine Light. Another lighthouse, with helical markings. The National Park Service acquired ownership of the lighthouse when it was abandoned in 1935. Today the Coast Guard owns and operates the navigational equipment, while the National Park Service maintains the tower as a historic structure. The Hatteras Island Visitor Center, formerly the Double Keepers Quarters located next to the lighthouse, elaborates on the Cape Hatteras story and the lifestyle on the Outer Banks. The light is still active. Used by the U.S Coast Guard as an Aid to Navigation, protecting Mariners from the icy depths of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.—Wikipedia
Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine. From 1900 to 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright came here from Dayton, Ohio, based on information from the U.S. Weather Bureau about the area's steady winds. They also valued the privacy provided by this location, which in the early twentieth century was remote from major population centers. The Wrights made four flights from the level ground near the base of the hill on December 17, 1903, in the Wright Flyer, following three years of gliding experiments from atop this and other nearby sand dunes. It is possible to walk along the actual routes of the four flights, with small monuments marking their starts and finishes. Two wooden sheds, based on historic photographs, recreate the world's first airplane hangar and the brothers' living quarters. The Visitor Center is home to a museum featuring models and actual tools and machines used by the Wright brothers during their flight experiments including a reproduction of the wind tunnel used to test wing shapes and a portion of the engine used in the first flight. A life-size replica of the Wright brothers' 1903 Wright Flyer, the first powered heavier-than-air aircraft in history to achieve controlled flight (the original being displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.). A full-scale model of the Brothers' 1902 glider is also present, having been constructed under the direction of Orville Wright himself. The Memorial Tower, a 60 feet granite monument, dedicated in 1932, is perched atop 90-foot-tall Kill Devil Hill, commemorating the achievement of the Wright brothers. They conducted many of their glider tests on the massive shifting dune that was later stabilized to form Kill Devil Hill. Inscribed in capital letters along the base of the memorial tower is the phrase 'In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith.' Atop the tower is a marine beacon, similar to one found in a lighthouse.—Wikipedia
