Gone With The Wind: Windmills Are A Forgotten Legacy Of The Outer Banks Of North Carolina ~ by Thomas Yocum: Ecology and History of the NC Outer Banks and the Mainland

For nearly two centuries, windmills were a vital part of life on the Outer Banks. Heavy wooden wheels studded with stout pegs rumbled to the cadence of wind. Canvas-covered blades whoosed overhead, grinding grain into fresh flour and meal that filled bread pans and muffin tins in nearly every island kitchen.

The importance of windmills was recognized long ago by the British officials in the young Carolina colony. ''An Act to Encourage Windmills'' was passed in 1715 -- one of the first significant steps of the administration of then-Governor Eden. The act granted a half-acre of public land to anyone wishing to build a windmill, provided the mill was operational within two years. The miller was granted a one-eighth share of the ground grain -- usually corn or wheat -- in return for the service.

''Massive things they were, these windmills, with a sail diameter of 40 feet and more and they began to dot the landscape long before there was a North Carolina,'' said the renowned Outer Banks author and journalist Ben Dixon MacNeill in a 1955 newspaper article.

At least 22 windmills stood along the Outer Banks and the northern reaches of Pamlico Sound. Hatteras Island had a dozen scattered throughout the villages of Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras. Ocracoke Island had two more, including one that stood in the middle of Ocracoke Inlet on Shell Castle Island. Roanoke Island had as many as four, dotting the island from the northern tip south to Wanchese.

Although Outer Banks residents grew little corn or wheat in the sandy soil, they had plenty of fish and shellfish to trade. A load of salted fish could be swapped for bushels of grain grown on the mainland. The heavy sacks were then brought back across the sounds where they could be ground as needed.

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