White Lake: A Historical Tour of the Nation's Safest Beach

By Cathy Faircloth Kinlaw

White Lake: A Historical Tour of the Nation's Safest Beach is a stroll through the history of a small lake community in southeastern North Carolina. Filled with vintage photographs, excerpts from archived articles, and personal recollections from the local residents and visitors who lived the history, the book commemorates the remarkable accomplishments of a small Southern town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504924009

Cathy Faircloth Kinlaw

Cathy Faircloth Kinlaw is a second-generation White Lake resident, artist, and community advocate. She is a former professional water-skier with Disney World; a former judge with the World Hang Gliding Championship at Cypress Gardens, Florida; a member of the White Lake Ski Heels; and the founder of the Fantasy Water Ski Team. She was a driving force for the promotion of show skiing on White Lake and throughout North Carolina in the 1970s and 1980s. Kinlaw is actively involved in the community of White Lake, serves on numerous committees, and promotes the region through writings and artwork.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 Cathy Faircloth Kinlaw. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse: 08/31/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2399-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2400-9 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-2401-6 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015911954

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Website

23563.png

White Lake

a Historical Tour of the Nation’s Safest Beach

by

Cathy Faircloth Kinlaw

Lake%20Morning%20A%20Photo%2089.tifFiner%20Carolina%20News%201966%20Photo%2041.tif

Finer Carolina News 1966 (Photo courtesy of Harry Womble)

Page%205.tif

Contents

The Geological Beginning

1700s - 1800s

1900s - 1920s

Melvin’s Beach Opens to the Public

Sightseeing Tour Boats Arrive

Crystal and Goldston’s Beaches Emerge

The Lilly Legacy Begins

1930s - 1940s

Amusements, Rides, and Arcades Appear

The Lilly II

The 4-H Camp Opens

The Future Farmers of America (FFA) Choose the Lake

The Sinfully Spectacular Big Bands

The Impact of World War II

1950s - 1960s

The Lilly III

The Glass Bottom Boats and the Crystal Queen

Polio Quarantines the Nation

The Fire of 1957

Langston’s Beach

The Lake Life

Camp Clearwater

Waterskiing Pioneers

1960s - 1970s

Lakeside Sunday School

The Arcade Life

The Blueberry Festival

1970s - 1980s

The White Lake Ski Heels

World Champion Trick Skier – Marc Bedsole

Hang Gliding on White Lake

The White Lake Water Festival

The White Lake Marina

1990s - 2000s

Melfest

Wakeboarding

Thoughts from the author

Someone once said……

Acknowledgements

Cover photos:

Left: Crystal Beach, circa 1960

Center: NC FFA Center, circa 1975

Right: White Lake Ski Heels, circa 1980

Original Watercolor Art by Cathy Faircloth Kinlaw

Back Cover Photos:

Left: Goldston’s Beach Waterfront 1930

Center: Bingo Stand 1940

Right: Dairy Queen 1960

Sunset%202%20Photo%20103.tif

Nothing could surpass the beauty of a summer evening at White Lake,

at the hour of dusk, ‘when the night lets down her curtain and pins it with a star,’

and picturesque sailboats, like fairy wings, dot the distant shoreline.

Mrs. E.F. McCulloch, Newspaper Editorial from the Bladen Journal

April 19, 1934

Geological%20Beginning.tif

W hite Lake is a natural, spring and rainwater-fed lake located in Bladen County in southeastern North Carolina, (latitude N 34.640454 and longitude W 78.483862). It is one of the recognized Carolina Bays that sweep across the eastern coast of North America from Delaware to Central Florida. These shallow, elliptical depressions in the earth’s surface share the same orientation and are easily visible from aerial photographs.

According to retired North Carolina State Parks Ranger and White Lake resident, Jeff Corbett, the Carolina Bays were first observed in the 1930s when aerial photographs showed discernible depressions in the earth’s surface. Scientists termed the depressions Carolina Bays because the majority are located in North and South Carolina, and bays because the depressions are home to three types of indigenous vegetation. Sweet bay, red bay, and loblolly bay trees proliferate the region.

Of the 1,200-1,800 original bays in Bladen County, many have been altered by both environmental changes and mankind. Five bays (Bay Tree Lake, Singletary Lake, Salter’s Lake, Jones Lake, and White Lake) are filled with water year-round. The majority of the remaining wetland bays are peat-filled bogs, which periodically hold water. In southeastern North Carolina, Corbett validates the importance of these bays as wetlands, which serve as natural fire breaks and habitats for amphibians and reptiles. Alligators thrived in White Lake until 1956, when residents captured and destroyed the last known alligator.

For centuries, scientific theories have emerged to explain the origin of the Carolina Bays. According to Corbett, some scientists believe giant pre-historic fish created the depressions during a spawn run in a geological era in which the coastal boundary was inland. Others have championed the theory that a deletion of limestone in the earth’s surface left the sunken, egg-shaped landscape; however, many of the bays are located where no limestone is found.

The most popular theory among the non-scientific community is the belief that millions of years ago, a meteorite shower pelted the east coast at an angle with a southeast to northwest orientation, leaving behind thousands of remarkably similar depressions in the earth’s surface. No definitive scientific proof exists to substantiate a meteorite shower in the region, but this theory remains widely favored among the locals.

Within the study of geomorphology, the Oriented Lakes Theory, proposed in 1988 by D.J. Bliley and D.A. Burney in their presentation entitled Late Pleistocene Climatic Factors in the Genesis of a Carolina Bay, is the most scientifically accepted explanation of the formation of the Carolina Bays. According to Corbett, it is theorized that