Saturday, March 15, 2014

Wahab Village Hotel

This is what Blackbeard's Lodge (originally Wahab Village Hotel) looked like in the 1950s:











The first floor on one side was a movie theater; the other side was a roller skating rink!

This was in the days when movies were projected with reels of film. A full length movie required two full reels...but Ocracoke only had one projector. So there would be an intermission while the projectionist changed reels.

I remember watching a Science-Fiction movie one summer evening when I was a teenager. After intermission and dimming of the lights we looked up on the screen to see cowboys racing across the badlands on their horses. Someone had sent the wrong second reel. What an uproar from the audience!

Of course we were all given a refund...but I never did see the second half of the Sci-Fi movie.

Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter documents the day telephones came to the island. The article includes images of Ocracoke's first telephone directory which lists a total of 63 subscribers. You can read the Newsletter here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news022114.htm.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous2:06 PM

    I'm guessing your refund was a quarter.
    Now you can own that B movie for what it costs for admission.
    But it was the best part of my childhood.

    ReplyDelete