3.23- Skateboard kids

Skateboarders on Midyette St.

Some young skateboarders were cruising down Midyette St. towards the Wildlife Ramp as the sun sank in the evening sky.

The Midyette family founded Oriental... In 1872, Robert P. Midyette purchased 350 acres of land which would eventually become the town of Oriental. At the time, the land was timberland and farmland.

Several members of the Midyette family came with Robert to settle on the land, and several of the early Midyette homes were built between Camp Creek and what is now Midyette St... Including, I believe, the houses in the background above.

In the late 1880's, Robert P. Midyette began subdividing and selling lots near Chadwick Point (the confluence of Raccoon Creek and the Neuse River), southeast of Midyette St.

The earliest parcels were developed into a lumber mill and mill worker tenaments (owned by lumber mill owners), a store, and warehouse and docking facilities on the Neuse River for the Old Dominion Steamship Company.

As more residential and commercial lots were subdivided, the town of Oriental was chartered (March 4, 1899), and the bustling little fishing and lumbering village grew, the Midyette descendants continued living on a 100 acre (more or less) plot along Midyette St. that remained un-divided until well after R.P. Midyette's death in 1902.

The Midyette family compound (which soon included homes of families by marriage) stretched along the banks of Camp Creek and Midyette St. to the town's gate at what is now the intersection of Midyette St. and North St.

(Yes, Oriental was originally a "gated community"... One early town ordinance imposed a 5$ fine for anyone who left the town gate open at night, presumably because there were free-roaming farm animals within the town borders.)

-30-