THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607060335
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: [CHESAPEAKE}
A PORTRAIT OF GROWTH
This begins an occasional series this summer focusing on growth in
Chesapeake, identified by residents as the city's most pressing
concern.
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 336 lines
Arthur L. Flemming sat before a tiny square of yellow paper and began to sketch the past.
He drew George Washington Highway, one of two main roads feeding into once-isolated Deep Creek. He added three squares to mark where the village's stores once stood, then quickly crossed off two.
``They're all gone now,'' he said, almost to himself.
The first has been replaced by a 7-Eleven. The other was razed. Flemming, 83, sat in the third, a pale yellow building that serves as his frame shop, gallery, notary public - and a link to Deep Creek's past.
All around him are signs of change.
The late-afternoon wall of traffic on U.S. Route 17 often cuts him off from his home across the street. He must wait out the snarl in his shop, which has been hit five times by wayward vehicles. A corner of his tired awning droops. The lifetime resident has given up on future repairs.
As Flemming has come to know intimately, Deep Creek is a place where Chesapeake's past and future are colliding.
While other areas of Chesapeake are predicted to grow a healthy 25 percent in the next 19 years, the Deep Creek area is predicted to expand an astounding 50 percent.
City planners say it's the next Great Bridge, calling it one of the fastest-growing areas in this, the fastest-growing city in Virginia and the eighth fastest-growing city in the nation.
Growth in Deep Creek had been predicted for years. But suddenly, the rush is on.
It has left natives anxious about the changes transforming their town; worried what will happen to the things that tie them to their past; nostalgic about the things that once made this place so unique.
New residents are concerned as well. Already, some said, the charm that lured them is slowly disappearing as more and more people discover and move to this now-bustling suburban Shangri-La.
``I hate to see it,'' Flemming said. ``It was country back here, and we'd just walk out our back door and go hunting. There's nowhere to go now. All the animals are gone.''
``Nothing there,'' he said, waving his arms. ``It's not Dismal Swamp. It's not country anymore.''
Most of the raw land in Deep Creek has been zoned for residential use since 1969, leaving locals with little or no defense against developments. Already there is enough land around Deep Creek to provide room for as many as 1,747 new homes.
The city plans to change the route of Cedar Road, making it a straighter, broader road that will head north and west through yet-to-be-tapped land, all of which has been zoned for residential development for the past 27 years.
Crews are almost done planting new water and sewer lines along the existing Cedar Road, where future developments are waiting to hook up. Plans also call for portions of Route 17 south of Deep Creek to become a four-lane highway connecting Norfolk to Raleigh.
Signs of change can already be found in the local landscape.
A Hardee's, the area's first fast-food restaurant, opened recently, though the high school crowd wants a Taco Bell. It's coming, local merchants said.
New pastorally themed developments - Hunters Glen, Glen Eagle, Deer Crossing, Cedar Creek - are popping up along Cedar Road and down Route 17. Ten new subdivisions on the Cedar Road corridor alone have the potential to sprout 1,257 single-family homes. More are on the way.
This coming school year, Deep Creek's schools will have 80 portable classrooms, ranking it second behind bustling Great Bridge, which will have 81.
At the same time, old Deep Creek is adapting. The Bar-B-Q Barn, a sometimes boisterous bar, restaurant, dance hall and pool hall at the center of the old historic town, is planning to split its dining room from the bar, where NASCAR parties are held and nary a bad word is spoken against Dale Earnhardt, the local hero.
``I hope,'' said owner William ``Herbie'' Dorsett, thinking of those new homes, ``I'm satisfying both clientele.''
Down the road, 42-year-old Gayle O'Neal's lifetime dream - a 23-acre country menagerie of peacocks, ponies, camels, goats, sheep corgies and dachshunds - is surrounded by plots for new homes. She and her husband, Donald Early, recently bought a 10 1/2-acre buffer against the growth.
Closer to the old town, the Cedar Grove Memorial Cemetery on Cedar Road is clogged with overgrown grass and weeds. Homemade concrete crosses mark some graves. Eerily ringed by concrete pipes and piles of dirt, the graveyard is encircled by construction for a new 1,500-student middle school.
``It doesn't do any good to hold on to the anger,'' said 74-year-old Viola J. Owens, whose husband, James Sr., is buried there. Her plot awaits next to his grave. The tombstone reads: ``Together Forever.''
Deep Creek was founded in 1665 as Smith's Creek. The name changed around 1763 when the country's future founding father accidentally submerged his 6-foot frame while trying to cross a nearby creek. Once on land, Washington was said to have uttered: ``Oh! What a deep creek!''
Washington likely slept here after he spent his days surveying the nearby Great Dismal Swamp.
The village didn't blossom until it became the northern terminus of the hand-dug Dismal Swamp Canal, which was begun in 1793 and finally opened in 1805. It is now the oldest operating artificial waterway in the nation.
In the summer of 1829, President Andrew Jackson came to Deep Creek to tour the canal. During a lunch break along the canal's shaded banks, the president was handed a wood shingle in lieu of a plate. He ate Virginia ham, smoked beef and tongue.
Ten years after the canal was completed, the Virginia Gazetteer wrote that Deep Creek boasted 25 homes, six general stores, two taverns, one non-denominational church, one grist mill, two boot and shoe factories, and two tailors.
It served mostly as an outpost for the nearby wilderness and was famous for its Saturday night fights between the woodsmen and watermen who emerged from the swamp to drink their wages.
During the Civil War, Union troops camped in Deep Creek and used the trees for target practice. To this day, locals are still pulling lead bullets from cypress.
The canal opened the town to trade. Farmers shipped their goods to faraway ports. Cypress and juniper shingles were a major commodity.
Flemming recalled the thrill of seeing the arrival of the James Adams Original Floating Theater, a 700-seat waterborne stage.
The theater traveled the canal, and its 30-person company and orchestra were advertised as ``The Most Unique Theatrical Enterprise in the World.''
Author Edna Ferber floated through Deep Creek while working with the theater, gathering material for her novel ``Show Boat,'' which later became the musical.
Through the years, Deep Creek's relative isolation kept it out of growth's way.
Soil conditions were bad and the land drained poorly, thanks in part to the nearby swamp. Utility lines didn't reach some areas of Deep Creek until 1976, and limited road access to the village kept things slow.
Interstate 64 initially routed traffic past Deep Creek. And even in 1980, Deep Creek was noted for its rustic and isolated charm.
``Before, it was nothing, not even a traffic light,'' said Herbie Dorsett, owner of the Bar-B-Q Barn, the only remaining tavern in the heart of Deep Creek. ``Now, hell, you can jump on the interstate and yer gone.''
Dorsett's parents came to Deep Creek when land was $98 an acre. His father would bring him to the restaurant in the 1950s when the place was a simple rectangular room. Hanging barbecued meat was warmed by the fireplace.
Dorsett bought the property about 12 years ago. For him, the Barn is a touchstone, a reminder of the past.
``It's like a high school reunion in here all the time,'' he said. ``It's always been locals.''
He won't sell. ``I would hate to see anything happen to it,'' he said. He is, however, adapting. Cutting off the dining room from the bar's noise, smoke, rough language and drinking is one way Dorsett plans to draw a new clientele.
``Financially, of course, I like it. I'd be a fool not to. But then, in another sense, with the town growing so fast and so big, I worry it's outgrowing itself.''
Across the street, 56-year-old Irvin C. Brown cut another head of hair on the self-declared ``Brown Side of Town'' - Brown's Barber Shop.
His father's chair, a beautifully worn wrought-iron throne that has seen a million heads, sat dusty and unused in a corner. Irvin tried to get rid of it once, he said, but the chair and his 86-year-old father won.
The shop is ``pretty much busy pretty much all of the time,'' Irvin said. Soap operas play on the television nonstop. His father, Ollie Brown, comes in and out of the shop at will but hasn't cut hair in a while. He lives nearby, while Irvin, who runs the shop, lives in Portsmouth.
As his old hometown grew, Irvin Brown began to notice the difference.
``Years ago, like you find in most small towns, there was a great deal of trust involved in knowing everybody,'' he said. ``You could leave your doors unlocked, stuff like that. Now, there's just a great deal of trust that's lost. Now, I can go up and down the streets, and I don't know anybody.''
Brown has two nieces in barber and cosmetology school who will likely take over. Deep Creek's growth and a recent doubling of business has him talking of expanding the simple, cinderblock shop. ``My idea about business is that, when people die, I don't think the business should die,'' he said. ``Businesses shouldn't be thrown away. When it's in a community, it becomes part of the community. And you can't take it away from the community. That's always been important to me.''
William Stewart, a 67-year-old transplant from the borough of Queens, New York, arrived in Deep Creek several years ago to be closer to his daughter and two grandchildren in Portsmouth.
He lives in the Mill Creek subdivision near Brown's shop and calls Deep Creek ``Sleepy Hollow.''
To Stewart, Deep Creek is ideal. ``I like the quiet,'' he said. ``But these roads aren't made for modern times,'' he added, mentioning an accident that morning that tied up the intersection of Cedar Road and George Washington Highway for about an hour.
Some in Deep Creek are less nostalgic about the town's past and see progress arriving with new residents.
Vernon Conway and his wife, Clara Nurse-Conway, spent a humid Saturday morning cheering the soccer efforts of their 7-year-old son, Vernon III.
They were among a handful of African Americans in the crowd on the sidelines behind Deep Creek Intermediate school.
Growth is bringing in couples of all races.
``I think that we all have to have an open mind,'' Vernon Conway, 33, said. ``And this new growth is opening people's minds. I'm optimistic about the future.''
But there is still some distance to travel.
A few hundred yards north of the school, near where Route 17 crosses Deep Creek, a lone flag flutters on a pole planted on a tiny marshy island about 100 yards from the road.
For the past 20 years, this pole has hosted the Confederate battle flag, the pride of Harry E. Trent Jr.
Trent, who passed away last year, was the self-appointed keeper of the flag.
He described it as a symbol more of Deep Creek's history than racial division. Trent's wife, Ruby, said her husband ``didn't have a racial overtone in his body.'' Still, it sparked controversy.
Mayor William E. Ward, Chesapeake's first black mayor, once sent city firefighters out to remove the flag, Ruby Trent said. Upon learning that the flag was on private property, they retreated.
``The flag is a symbol of days gone by,'' said Ward, ``and it may or may not be reflective of an old mentality. . . . This is the new Chesapeake that we're promoting, and Deep Creek is indicative of that new Chesapeake. We need not relive the past.''
Today, the Stars and Bars has been replaced by the first Confederate flag, which looks similar to the American flag from a distance.
``I just felt that there was a need,'' said Dennis Strickland, who lives down the highway from the flag and is its new custodian. ``We're not out to try and raise the past or have slavery again. We're only out there to show that there was a past in the white man's life that we're proud of.''
Down Route 17, Anthony and Denise Pearson were house hunting in Hunters Glen at Sawyers Meadow, a sprawling, 468-home development south of town, just north of where the city has dedicated land for a new park.
Three model homes were on view, sprouting from the dirt fields, with bright green lawns and miniature trees. Prospective buyers tromped steadily through.
The Pearsons, both 33, said they had been looking for a house for the past seven years while living in a trailer park near Oceana Naval Air Station. Like scores of others, they said they were drawn to Deep Creek by the prospect of ``a lot of home for a little money'' in the country.
The Pearsons said they didn't plan to put down roots in Deep Creek. They ultimately want to move back to their home state of Indiana and settle down.
For the Pearsons and others who want to use Deep Creek as a temporary stop, growth means a rise in property values. ``Then,'' said Anthony, ``we won't have to sell the house at a loss.''
On this same piece of land, Vernon Whedbee once harvested soybeans and wheat.
The Whedbee family has farmed in Deep Creek since the mid-1940s, once owning about 500 acres, much of it south of Deep Creek below where Sawyers Meadow is now growing homes.
The family now owns less than 50 acres, leasing the rest from the developers who have bought portions of the farm over the years. Rising property taxes were the reason.
``They cost so much it was hard to pay the taxes and the upkeep,'' said Jeff Whedbee, 35.
He has prepared himself for the time when developers plant homes in his fields. He is the owner of an electronics store, offering satellite dishes, home security systems, VCRs, stereos and home theaters that will likely be installed in homes built on land they once farmed.
Several satellite dishes sit in the farm's driveway across from a John Deere harvester.
For years, Deep Creek residents have worried about ``the passing of the fences,'' a phrase derived from the disappearance of traditional farm borders.
But for Jeff Whedbee, the fence has already passed in Deep Creek. When his son Brandon was born seven years ago, he said, there was never a thought of passing on the land.
``You gotta roll with the punches, I guess,'' Whedbee said from inside a grain dryer. ``It's just all wait and see.'' ILLUSTRATION: STEVE EARLEY Color photos/The Virginian-Pilot
PAST AND PRESENT: Deep Creek's identities converge at Cedar Grove
Memorial Cemetery, where construction for a new 1,500-student middle
school surrounds the overgrown community graveyard on Cedar Road.
Until new schools are built, a growing number of students are housed
in portable classrooms. Deep Creek's seven schools have a total of
80 portables, the second-highest number in Chesapeake.
WITNESS: Arthur Flemming has seen the changes in Deep Creek from his
Great Dismal Swamp Gallery, which sits just a few feet from the roar
of traffic on Route 17.
Map
The Virginian-Pilot
Graphic
VP
GROWTH SPURT
SOURCE: City of Chesapeake
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Photos by STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot
WAITING TO BOOM: Three model homes, complete with green yards and
fences, are the beginnings of a 468-home development on U.S. Route
17 south of Deep Creek. On what was once farmland, homes at Hunters
Glen at Sawyers Meadow will start around $115,000. Real estate
agents expect to sell about eight a month. In addition to
already-approved developments, city planners said undeveloped land
in and around Deep Creek could support 1,747 new homes.
RURAL RUSH HOUR: Deep Creek's new growth has both Cedar Road and
U.S. Route 17, the area's two main roads, operating at twice their
capacity. And with each new home built, traffic engineers estimate
10 new daily car trips are created. Near Deep Creek High and
Elementary schools, crossing guard Cindy Perry tries to control the
flow at the intersection of Route 17 and Wesley Road, one of
Chesapeake's worst intersections.
CHANGING ATTITUDES? A Confederate flag has flown for 20 years on a
marshy island near U.S. Route 17 in Deep Creek. It has been a source
of tension for some and pride for others.
``We're not out to raise the past or have slavery again,'' said
Dennis Strickland, the keeper of the flag. ``We're only out there to
show that there was a past in the white man's life that we're proud
of.''
But Deep Creek native Vernon Conway, cheering with his wife, Clara
Nurse-Conway, at their son's soccer game, sees growth as changing
small-town attitudes about race.
``This new growth is opening people's minds,'' he says.
FARMLAND TO SUBDIVISIONS: The shell of a farmhouse sits on land that
will soon become New Mill Landing, a development of at least 134
homes. The site is near the intersection of Dominion Boulevard and
Cedar Road. Just west of the house, a new alignment of Cedar Road
will open hundreds of acres to development, as will new sewer and
water lines along the existing road. Ten already approved
subdivisions here have the potential to sprout 1,257 homes.
PASSING DOWN A LEGACY: Irvin C. Brown, who run Brown's Barber Shop
in Deep Creek, said a recent doubling of business will allow him to
pass the shop, which was started by his 86-year-old father, along to
his nieces. ``Business shouldn't be thrown away,'' he said after
cutting 19-year-old Ronnie Brown's hair. ``When it's in a community,
it becomes part of the community.''
EMBRACING CHANGE: An influx of new families is leading Bar-B-Q Barn
owner Herbie Dorsett to remodel the sometimes-rowdy hangout. The
bar, where Sunday afternoon NASCAR parties are a big draw, will be
separated from the family-oriented restaurant. ``I hope,'' he says,
``I'm satisfying both clientele.''
FEELING THREATENED: The rural life was what attracted Don Early to
Deep Creek. Now surrounded by development, he and his wife, Gayle
O'Neal, worry that the crush of new developments will threaten their
way of life.``I moved out here to the country,'' O'Neal said, ``and
all of a sudden, the country's gone.''
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE DEVELOPMENT DEEP CREEK by CNB