In 1587, 117 men, women, and children landed on Roanoke Island to build the first English colony in America. Governor John White sailed back to England for supplies; war with Spain held him there three years. When he returned in 1590, the settlement was gone. What the colonists left behind were carved letters — the accounts differ on exactly what was written and where — and nothing else the record has closed. Most modern scholars believe the colonists assimilated into local indigenous tribes, but no one has proven it. Every summer since 1937, Paul Green's outdoor drama has staged that disappearance at the Waterside Theatre, which means this barrier island has spent nearly ninety years performing a question it cannot answer. That is the Outer Banks' oldest story: not a founding, but a vanishing.
