HAMPTON, Va. — A hotel that once resided along Buckroe Beach in Hampton was an iconic vacation spot for African Americans during segregation.
The Bay Shore Hotel, built in the 1890s and nestled along Hampton's Buckroe Beach, was the only seaside resort for African Americans in Virginia for several decades.
What began as a modest four-room cottage expanded to a grand three-story, 70-room resort by the 1920s.
Dance halls, private beaches, amusement parks, piers and pavilions attracted Black travelers from near and far during its lifetime.
The hotel hosted several state and national conferences, sporting events, weddings and notable Jazz performers like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Although the physical structure has vanished, The Bay Shore Hotel's groundbreaking legacy of firsts remains.
Standing in its place today is a "Green Book" historic marker, the first of its kind in all of Virginia, because it was a frequently advertised location published in Victor Hugo Green's "Green Book," the safe traveling motorist guide for African Americans in the mid-1900s.
In the Tidewater region, there are more than 100 Green Book sites across the greater Hampton Roads area, from Gloucester County to Portsmouth and beyond. Previous 13News Now reporting compiled the status of those sites, and found roughly 85% of those sites named were either demolished or designated as an "unknown" status.
The process to identify and install a green book marker at each qualified site in Virginia could take years, according to officials with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
However, there are already two more planned for being unveiled: Miller's and Eggleston Hotels in Richmond and Yancey House and Grasty Library in Danville.