Areas 0/ the building recall its hunting lodge days. 



Refuge manager Donald Temple realized the lodge's potential. 



faring so well. Problems with the pumps 

 and canals caused the lake to partially refill, 

 and the resulting money troubles forced the 

 first group to sell in 1918. The next owners 

 went bankrupt five years later. The third 

 owners forewent further colonization efforts 

 to concentrate on commercial farming. 

 They cultivated more than 12,000 acres of 

 com, wheat, flax and soybeans with record- 

 breaking yields. 



Then, in 1932, they shut off the pumps, 

 and the water reclaimed the fields and 

 streets. The owners had decided to sell the 

 land to the federal government for a wildlife 

 sanctuary. With the creation of what is now 

 Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge in 

 1934, a second lustrous era for the building 

 began. The Civilian Conservation Corps — 

 "the army without guns" — arrived, and the 

 employment program's young workers 

 converted the cavernous pump house into 

 guest quarters and dining facilities. They 

 trimmed the 125-foot smokestack to 1 12 

 feet and installed a spiral staircase to make 

 an observation tower. 



Mattamuskeet Lodge opened in 1937 

 with 10 rooms. The lodge was an immedi- 

 ate success with goose hunters, and nine 

 more rooms opened in 1941. More than 

 150,000 Canada geese wintered on Lake 

 Mattamuskeet then. The water was also 

 thick with snow geese, swans and dozens of 

 species of ducks. 



The lodge became the center of Hyde 



County hospitality, the setting for parties 

 and proms. Not all of its guests were 

 hunters. One who later became famous was 

 Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent 

 Spring launched the national environmental 

 movement. Carson began her career as a 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service writer. She 

 stayed at the lodge while composing a 

 pamphlet about the refuge and told friends 

 how she enjoyed the "constant, haunting 

 music of the geese." 



But the music faded in the 1960s as 

 migratory patterns changed. The Canada 

 goose flock dropped to about 20,000; today 

 the average is about 6,000. The refuge was 

 closed to goose hunting in 1974. The lodge, 

 too, shut down and quickly slid into 

 disrepair. Some say only its 1980 listing on 

 the National Register of Historic Places 

 prevented its demolition. 



"When I got here, the building was a 

 disgrace to the agency," says Donald 

 Temple, refuge manager since 1989. "We 

 were getting a lot of criticism." 



It wasn't that the wildlife service didn't 

 care about the building, he says. There 

 simply wasn't enough money for both it and 

 necessary wildlife projects. "You had to 

 make some hard decisions," he says. As 

 Temple and others began marshaling action 

 within the service, community commitment, 

 too, was growing. An emotional 1989 

 reunion brought together former New 

 Holland residents, CCC members and 



others associated with the lodge, fueling the 

 sentiment to save it. The Friends of 

 Mattamuskeet Lodge Committee formed 

 through the Greater Hyde County Chamber 

 of Commerce and, with the federal wildlife 

 service, sponsored work bees that attracted 

 large and determined crowds of volunteers 

 who pulled down vines, cleared brush, 

 picked up trash, swept away dust, scraped 

 old paint and plaster, painted and performed 

 other cleanup duties. Scientists at East 

 Carolina University in Greenville, drawn by 

 the area's unexplored natural resources, 

 proposed using the lodge as a research 

 station. Political forces became interested. 



Before long, ideas to put the lodge back 

 to work as a research center and wildlife 

 service office took shape. Studies deemed 

 the building structurally sound, and with a 

 trickle of state, local and federal money, the 

 immense rehabilitation began. The work got 

 a boost when the Partnership for the Sounds 

 coalesced in 1993. The nonprofit group 

 promotes ecotourism and environmental 

 education as an economic base for the 

 Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula. In an 

 agreement with the federal wildlife service, 

 the partnership set as a priority renovating 

 the lodge for environmental education, field 

 research, wildlife service offices and 

 community functions. The partnership 

 money, from state appropriations, further 

 increased momentum. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 9 



