The Back Bay watershed contains suburban development in the northern areas and farmland and protected areas to the south. Back Bay flows into Currituck Sound and is part of the Albemarle-Pamlico system.
Characteristic
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Location
Located in the southeastern quadrant of Virginia Beach.
Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge established June 6, 1938
The dunes were created by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
Before that there was no continuous dune line.
Currituck and Back Bay were used for market hunting and many hunting lodges were built and some still exist.
Many of the islands were inhabited in the past.
To become the largest largemouth bass area, the community added pumps to manipulate the salinity of the bay for the fish.
At low tide you can see the remains of old oyster beds.
In the past the dunes were over washed during storms. Wash Woods was a community with a church and a school. It had a population of about 300. The community was abandoned in the 1930s.
Windmills at Dam Neck Mills and Red Mill made use of the wind tides to grind grain.
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