Bay Shore Beach & Resort

Bay Shore Beach and Resort in Hampton began after Buckroe Beach opened as a whites-only facility in the eighteen eighties, prompting African American leaders in Hampton to form the Bay Shore Hotel Company in 1887 and buy beachfront land next to Buckroe Beach in 1888 for a seaside resort for their own people. Led by Frank Banks of Hampton Institute, it came to be considered the first vacation spot for blacks in the South and drew thousands of vacationers from the mid-Atlantic region, including many arriving by excursion train from Richmond. What started as a four-room cottage in 1898 expanded into a four-story beachfront hotel with seventy rooms and long porches facing the water, alongside an amusement park with attractions such as the Dixie Flyer rollercoaster and a carousel, and a dance hall that hosted entertainers including Cab Calloway, James Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie. A major hurricane on August 23, 1933, decimated the resort, but it was later rebuilt by the New Bay Shore Corporation, and the new Bay Shore Amusement Park operated well into the late 1960s. In 1973, the directors were forced to sell the property to private developers, yet Bay Shore remained a memorable part of Hampton's history.

Hampton, Virginia · United States