Bay Shore Hotel Beach & Resort
In 1898, a bookkeeper at Hampton Institute, now known as Hampton University, got an idea to create a beachfront escape for Black people in the region. That place became the popular resort known as Bay Shore Beach. Bay Shore was adjacent to Buckroe Beach and operated as a holiday destination for thousands of Black beachgoers for many decades.
The beach was one of the most popular resort and vacation destinations in the Mid-Atlantic region for African Americans. Besides standard beach activities, hotels, and restaurants, Bay Shore also had an amusement park. The beach was in its prime of popularity from 1898 until 1933 when a Hurricane devastated the coast. Both "sides" of the beach, (Bay Shore & Buckroe) were respectively rebuilt, however, Bay Shore may not have been built back to its former heights, although it remained popular.
Bay Shore was a place that entertained thousands of people every summer, that drew the greatest entertainers from around the country. Bay Shore was a beach that had the clearest water. You could actually see to the bottom. Bay Shore had lifeguards, and even though the story at the time was that Black people could not swim, we had lifeguards. So if we couldn't swim, we still had someone to save our lives.
Begun as a small four-room cottage, by 1925 the hotel had expanded to seventy rooms with an associated amusement park, pavilion, and pier. African Americans flocked to this beachfront resort from several states away. The C&O railway ran a line to Buckroe Beach during the summers until World War II. Churches throughout Virginia had regular summer outings to Buckroe Beach. The Bay Shore Hotel was listed in The Green Book from 1947 to 1958 & again from 1962 to 1964 and 1966 to 1967. Ironically, the all-white Buckroe Beach Amusement Park sat adjacent to the Bay Shore Beach Resort, separated only by a fence that stretched across the beach into the water. Performers at the resort included Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Redd Foxx.
Bay Shore's pavilion and hotel structure were on the Chitlin circuit. So many of the artists that you and I might have grown up watching actually visited there. The best part was not only did they visit and play there, but they could stay there and go through the front door. So they didn't have to worry about none of that, "Well, you know, you can play here, but you can't stay here." They could stay there and they can enjoy the food there. Ella Fitzgerald grew up in Newport News. There was Pearl Bailey, who also grew up in Newport News. There was Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, James Brown, Martha and the Vandellas, Sam Cook, and Otis Redding. It's just too numerous to mention how many stars came to Bay Shore Pavillion.
There actually used to be a fence in the water to separate the races. They had a fence that ran from the shoreline all the way into the deepest end of the Chesapeake Bay so that Black people stayed on their side and white people stayed on their side. It's amazing to me that you would have a fence in the water.
Bay Shore at Buckroe Beach Slide Show
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