Outer Banks Beachcomber Museum

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Speaking about this historic site

at the time of its listing in the

National Register of Historic Places,

Outer Banks historian David Stick said:

"Let’s put it this way, I would say next to Jockey’s Ridge

and the Wright Brothers Memorial, it is the most

historically significant place on the northern Outer Banks"

From the Virginian Pilot, November 24, 2004.

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The selling price will reflect the historic value of the site and the two structures on

it which are both listed in the National Register of Historic Places listed. The property

will be sold to a buyer who is committed to preserving the history the site contains

and represents.

It will not be sold as a tear down.We are working with Doug Stover on pinning down

the actual history for the back house and having that corrected in the National Register of Historic Places. We recently discovered that the house is actually the Willie Otis Twiford homestead, the last remaining house from the Nags Head Woods locals' community, where it was built circa 1890.

Information about Tax Credits available for a "Certified Restoration" of the site....HERE

Send all inquiries to Info@OSOB.net

Midgette's Store and House are on the right, with two empty lots to the south on the left.

The lot adjacent the property is for sale for $350,000(Lot 1) and Lot 2 may be available as well.

Original Soundside location of Mattie Midgette's Store and House

on left from an ACE 1932 photograph of the new Beach Road.

Closeup of Soundside location in 1932.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION 1-7-2019

Updated Weekly

Mattie Midgette's Store

Sea glass and beachcombing expert Richard LaMotte's new book, The Lure of Sea Glass, is a sequel to his classic, Pure Sea Glass: Discovering Nature’s Vanishing Gems, which was published in 2004. That book, which has become the definitive book on the subject, helped spark the increasingly popular pastime of collecting treasures from the sea.

The Nellie Myrtle Collection was highlighted

in sea glass and beachcombing Guru Richard LaMotte's 2015 book, "The Lure of Sea Glass".

LaMotte writes...

"In old Nags Head, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is an important piece of history that could soon be lost to the fury of an Atlantic hurricane.

Inside a weary 1920s bungalow patiently sits the most extraordinary and diverse collection of seaside relics ever amassed by a beachcomber.

Known today as the Outer Banks Beachcomber Museum, this classic coastal cottage was once a local Nags Head grocery store and home to Nellie Myrtle Pridgen.

Nellie was a woman with one primary passion since the 1920s; she walked the beaches almost daily in search of treasure, not gold or silver but virtually any items lost to the sea. "

"Her gatherings from the shore are a time capsule of goods from the first half of our 20^th century. She spent the majority of her life methodically accumulating and researching over 50 years of American history, along with a few objects that pre-dated her by several hundred years. Most of the collection is neatly archived in boxes or cases, on shelves or in piles.

This is not a hoarder’s mess, Nellie was well read and understood history quite well, but the collection seems to have outgrown the modest cottage. Glass bottles and sea glass make up a noteworthy part of the menagerie.

Exquisite shells like a rare Argonaut, tin soldiers and toys, as well as a plethora of fulgurites left behind by lightning strikes in the sand.

One remarkable find is the top section of a stoneware jug, featuring a bearded man’s face, a rare piece of German Bellarmine vessel likely from the 1600's."

More on Richard LaMotte's

"The Lure Of Sea Glass" >>> HERE...

For the latest information from the

Outer Banks Beachcomber Museum,

Old Nags Head oceanfront, MP 13, January , 2015, with exposed sand fence

placed on the new beach after the 2011 Beach Fill project in Nags Head.

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"I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way

Where the wind's like a whetted knife."

From ~ Sea Fever ~ By John Masefield

"For most of her 74 years, Nellie Myrtle – as everyone called her – walked at dusk and dawn, day in and day out, along the oceanfront, the sound side and the dunes at Jockey’s Ridge, scouting for beach glass, bottles, old dolls, anything interesting that the sea tossed aside or the sands gave up. By the time she died in 1992, she had amassed jar after jar of sea glass, sorted by color; seashells of every distinction; colorful plastic toys that fill a big basket; bottles of every color and size, some containing messages; and numerous nautical artifacts."

Catherine Kozak ~ The Virginian Pilot ~ Norfolk Virginia