This area became Silver Sands State Park in 1960. It’s an example of what happens when a developed area is allowed to return to nature. Beachfront homes and homes built on filled-in salt marsh next to the beach were destroyed in the 1938 Hurricane and in Hurricane Diane in 1955. The state then removed more than 300 properties, leaving the beaches and salt marsh to mostly take a natural course.

By 1990, the salt marsh’s regrowth is visible. Sometime between 1965 and 1990, breakwaters began to be built perpendicular to the beaches. In the years that followed, the east-to-west sediment flow becomes more visible in the shifting shapes of the beaches between the breakwaters.