THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 17, 1995 TAG: 9503170580
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OREGON INLET LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Seven years after the U.S. Coast Guard abandoned its historic station on this Outer Banks inlet, Dare County officials have decided the property belongs to the taxpayers.
County Attorney H. Al Cole Jr. filed a title on the 10-acre tract and 11,361-square-foot station this week at Dare County's Register of Deeds office.
But at least one Outer Banks resident plans to fight the county's ownership claim.
A spokesman for heirs of the family that originally donated the land to the U.S. government said the county has no rights to the property. When the Coast Guard evacuated the station, he said, the land reverted to the family.
``I've contacted an attorney about this already,'' Wanchese resident Phillip Quidley Sr. said Thursday afternoon. ``We are going to fight the county's claim.''
A wooden structure with a gabled roof, the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Oregon Inlet is on the southeast side of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge, partially encircled by a rock groin. In 1897, Jessie B. Etheridge deeded 10 acres of desolate Hatteras Island oceanfront to the federal government for $200 to place a lifesaving station. The U.S. Coast Guard, which took over the lifesaving service, abandoned the Oregon Inlet station in 1988.
Four years later, the U.S. government deeded its interest in the Coast Guard quarters to Dare County. But 12 heirs of Etheridge said the federal government didn't have any right to give that property away. By law, they said, it belonged to the family.
An Outer Banks attorney took up the case and said, indeed, Etheridge's heirs should inherit the station and its land. Language in the deed Etheridge signed indicates that Etheridge or his heirs could reclaim ownership once the government stopped using it as originally intended, Southern Shores lawyer Roy A. Archbell Jr. said last year. Etheridge's heirs hired a caretaker for the station, changed the locks on the historic building, and posted ``No Trespassing'' signs around the property.
In 1993, Dare County did not assess any taxes on the Coast Guard station, which is valued at $216,800, or on the land, which is valued at $840,000. In 1994, the county sent a $6,129 tax bill to John L. Booth, the caretaker. As of Thursday, that bill had not been paid.
``We're going to send county workers down there very soon to clean up the grounds, secure the building, put up signs,'' Dare County spokesman Charlie Hartig said Thursday. ``We want to let the people know that the county has taken possession of that station.''
For the past seven years, however, county officials have shown little interest in the Oregon Inlet Coast Guard Station. Some Hatteras Island residents who want to use it for a visitors center criticized their commissioners for not fighting the ownership claims of Etheridge's heirs. Commissioners said they are glad the issue finally can be settled.
About two weeks ago, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Jim Johnson called county officials to say they actually owned the Coast Guard Station. According to information from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the federal government condemned all outstanding property interests on Pea Island - including the Coast Guard station - when it created the Cape Hatteras National Seashore for the National Park Service in 1959.
``When the Coast Guard abandoned the property in 1988, the station and land reverted to the National Park Service,'' Cole said.
In 1992, the Secretary of Transportation - who oversees the U.S. Coast Guard - transferred ``the interests of all other federal agencies in the property to Dare County,'' Cole wrote in a March 13 memo. That action required the National Park Service to forfeit its claim in the Coast Guard station to Dare County.
``The county originally sought that property through then-Congressman Walter B. Jones Sr.,'' Cole said. ``He saw to it that the Park Service gave us that building. We have had it insured under the county's policy since 1992.''
County officials did not explain why property taxes for the station and land were billed to the caretaker.
As of Thursday, Cole said, county officials had not been served with any papers from Etheridge's heirs regarding their possible claim to the Coast Guard property.
``I half-way knew in my mind all along that the station was ours, Dare County's,'' Board of Commissioners Chairman Robert V. ``Bobby'' Owens Jr. said Thursday. ``I just hope we can find a good use for it. I'd like for our board to find an agency from the state or federal government that would want to make it into a research facility for environmental studies or fisheries or something.''
``It's in terrible shape. It would take at least $1 million to renovate that place,'' Owens said. ``But it could become a county recreational facility with a boat-launch ramp. We could do some sort of project like that with the Tourist Bureau or towns. It's got a lot of potential.
``I'd hate like the devil to see it turned into a condominium complex or a private, for-profit establishment. I just want it to go to good use. I want to see it put to some benefit for the public.'' by CNB