Jockey's Ridge State Park

The tallest active sand dune system in the eastern United States sits in Nags Head, and it almost became a vacation home development. In 1973, a local resident named Carolista Baum confronted a bulldozer operator working the sound side of the ridge and demanded the machine stop. Petitions followed, the organization People to Preserve Jockey's Ridge formed, and by 1975 the state had acquired roughly 152 acres to establish the park. The dunes shift one to six feet southwest each year and have never stopped moving.