Qualla: Wash Woods, Virginia https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Wash Woods, Virginia https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia Wash Woods, Virginia: Introduction https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia/ Photo credit Lago Mar, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wash Woods began the same way it ended: with the sea. Sometime in the 17th or 18th century, the survivors of a shipwreck on the long Virginia barrier coast waded ashore on a remote stretch of beach south of what would become Virginia Beach. There was no road in. No road out. They built houses from what the next storms washed up. They fished, farmed thin soil, hunted waterfowl in the Back Bay marshes, and patrolled the beach at night looking for other ships in trouble. By 1900, three hundred people lived in Wash Woods. By 1933, two hurricanes had decided that the people were not allowed to stay. By the 1950s, only the lifesaving station was still operating. Today there is a cemetery, a foundation where the Methodist church once stood, and a converted hunt clubhouse that the state park uses for an education center. The rest of the town is gone the way the town began - washed away.

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Image: Lago Mar | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/dqd0-wash-woods-virginia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Wash Woods, Virginia: The Cypress That Built the Town https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia/ Photo credit Lago Mar, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1889, a schooner called the John S. Wood ran aground off this stretch of beach with a load of lumber and broke apart in the storm. The cypress wood that washed ashore from the wreck went into the village's Methodist church and several other structures. It was practical - cypre...

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Image: Lago Mar | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/dqd0-wash-woods-virginia-the-cypress-that-built-the-town.mp3 0:06 2 full Wash Woods, Virginia: Two Lifesaving Stations https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia/ Photo credit Lago Mar, CC BY-SA 3.0. The town's economy was the coastal economy: fishing, farming, market hunting (selling waterfowl by the barrel to northern restaurants), and lifesaving. The False Cape Life-Saving Station was one of the first, established in 1875. After the disastrous wrecks of the Huron at Nags H...

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Image: Lago Mar | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/dqd0-wash-woods-virginia-two-lifesaving-stations.mp3 0:06 3 full Wash Woods, Virginia: The Storms That Ended Everything https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia/ Photo credit Lago Mar, CC BY-SA 3.0. The sea inundated the narrow sandy strip so often that residents had begun to leave by the 1920s. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 outlawed market hunting and took another economic leg out from under the town. Then came August 1933. The 1933 Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane hit ...

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Image: Lago Mar | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/dqd0-wash-woods-virginia-the-storms-that-ended-everything.mp3 0:06 4 full Wash Woods, Virginia: The Hunt Clubs and the Park https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia/ Photo credit Lago Mar, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the residents left, the land became home to several waterfowl hunting clubs - wealthy sportsmen who could afford to maintain remote lodges and who valued the abundant ducks and geese of Back Bay. The clubs ran the area for about thirty-five years. In 1968 the Commonwealth o...

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Image: Lago Mar | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/dqd0-wash-woods-virginia-the-hunt-clubs-and-the-park.mp3 0:06 5 full Wash Woods, Virginia: Thirteen Voters https://qualla.com/wash-woods-virginia/ Photo credit Lago Mar, CC BY-SA 3.0. One last footnote belongs to Wash Woods, and it is strange enough to be worth telling. Into the mid-1950s, Wash Woods remained a registered voting precinct - with exactly thirteen registered voters. Under Virginia law at the time, when all the voters in a precinct had voted in pe...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/d/0/wash-woods-virginia-wp/dqd0-wash-woods-virginia-thirteen-voters.mp3 0:06 6 full