Cape Lookout

Description: It’s fitting that one of the most strikingly distinctive lighthouses on the eastern seaboard is on a stretch of the Outer Banks that has witnessed everything from hurricanes to malaria, from pirates to Nazi U-boats. To paraphrase Thomas Gray, Cape Lookout has “read a nation’s history in its eye.” The 21-mile stretch of Cape Lookout Shoals has a history as long and interesting as its country’s. The land has been inhabited for centuries; in 1524, the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazano reported native peoples living in the area, and between 1540 and 1570 Spain sent several explorers to the region, although none attempted to colonize. It wasn’t until the English settlers came that the Old World got its foot firmly in the door of this part of the New World.