Dogwood Streets & The Southern Shores

Why Are Many Streets in the Sothern Shores Named Dogwood?

Driving through Southern Shores can be confusing; it can seem as though every road is named Dogwood. Actually it’s just a few of the roads, but they’re the streets that are most used, so for the uninitiated it is bewildering.

The story behind the multiple Dogwood Trails also explains why the town became a mostly residential community.

As the vacation lots sold, David Stick began looking to the dense maritime forest and swamp that made up the western part of Southern Shores as having the greatest potential for development.

Or it would if he could just find the money to drain the swamps and build roads.

In the mid 1950s David began dredging the swamps. He used the dredge spoils to build islands in the middle of the canals he was creating and as a primitive roadbed as roads were bulldozed through the area.

But more money was needed.

The original surveyor for many of the lots in the town was a man named Porcius Crank, who was also a registered forester. Stick asked Crank whether the trees in the forest had commercial value. Crank’s answer was that the trees did indeed have a real value, but surprisingly it was the dogwood that would get top dollar.

In the 1950s North Carolina boasted one of the largest weaving industries in the world, and at that time, dogwood was the wood of choice for the bobbins that were used in the mills.

The right to harvest the dogwood was sold for almost $64,000, or $593,000 in modern dollars.