In 1587, twenty years before Jamestown, 116 men, women, and children planted the roots of English society on the shore at Fort Raleigh on Roanoke Island. Their hopes for a better life in the New World clashed with neighboring Indians, and the settlement soon disappeared, though the colonists' dreams lived on. Since the early 1900s, Roanoke Island residents have paid tribute to these early English beginnings by staging events each summer. The success of a 1921 movie about the ill-fated settlement led to the creation of an outdoor drama, The Lost Colony. Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Green created the semi-fictional script from firsthand accounts, and since 1937 millions have witnessed the play as a tribute to those who struggled and died colonizing the New World.