There is not a parking lot but you may park along the street.
The park entrance is at these coords:
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| Parking Lat: N 36 49.579 Long: W 076 10.763 |
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Cache is a well marked, camouflaged ammo can. It is completely
covered with leaves and sticks. Please be sure to cover it as well
or better than you found it.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AREA Copied from a very
well done trail brochure available at the Kempsville Area
Library.
The Chesapeake Indians lived in this area four hundred years
ago. They grew crops, hunted and fished on the lands and waters of
what is now part of the City of Virginia Beach. Some of their
fishing was done at night, with fires in the canoes to attract
fish. These Indians paddled up what is now known as the Eastern
Branch of the Elizabeth River to fish in the same waters that now
flow by this park. They would often put ashore to make camp in an
area like this park due to its elevation above the adjoining
marshes.
English and Spanish explorers likely explored this area as early
as the 1580's, but English settlers arrived in the early 1600's.
Soon, Kempsville, named for one of the earliest settlers in the
area, George Kempe, had the largest population in what would become
Princess Anne County, carved from Norfolk County. Kempsville has
retained this distinction to the present day in the City of
Virginia Beach, since the merger of the county with the town of
Virginia Beach in 1963.
Once the only transportation artery for the local Population,
the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River served as a route for
shallow draft vessels to the port of Kempe's Landing until the
early 1900's. Boats would blow a whistle to let townsfolk know they
were nearing the docks at Kempe's Landing, which was located near
the former Kemps Landing Middle School. After docking, the boats
had only a short time to load their cargoes of produce from local
farms, or they would be grounded at low tide and forced to wait
until the next high tide to float free. In earlier times, sailing
ships would reach Kempe's Landing and leave for European and West
Indies ports, but erosion induced by farming practices of the day
gradually filled the channel to the port. This filling intensified
in the 1960's as urban development occurred in the watershed.
The area has changed a great deal since colonial times, and
since the mid 1900's. It first passed through many hands as
farmland. In the early part of this century, a large farm covered
the area of the present park and much of the adjoining subdivision.
The farm raised chickens, cows and pigs, along with grain crops of
corn, wheat and soybeans. On Sundays, friends would come from miles
around to visit. In the 1930's and 40's the farm became the site of
a well known horse stable. The horses raised here were raced on a
track next to the old Cavalier Hotel at the Oceanfront.
The park site was acquired by the City of Virginia Beach in 1982
when an old sewage treatment plant built in the early 1960's
serving the subdivision was closed. It provides an excellent spot
for getting away from the pace of the present city and
rediscovering what this area must have been like in earlier and
simpler times.