The Outer Banks are a group of barrier islands on the North Carolina coast that separate the Atlantic Ocean from the coastal sounds and inlets.

The large number of ships that ran aground because of these shifting sandbars gave this area the nickname "Graveyard of the Atlantic."

The visitor center offers information about the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, ranger programs and a bookstore.

On July 10, 1794, after Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton requested that they make a lighthouse on this location after his ship almost crashed and sank on its to way to The New World giving it the nickname "Hamilton's light" Congress appropriated $44,000 "for erecting a lighthouse on the headland of Cape Hatteras and a lighted beacon on Shell Castle Island, in the harbor of Ocracoke in the State of North Carolina."

In 1854 a first-order Fresnel lens with flashing white light was substituted for the old reflecting apparatus, and the tower was raised to 150 feet (46 m).

At the behest of mariners and officers of the U.S. Navy, Congress appropriated $80,000 to the United States Lighthouse Board to construct a new beacon at Cape Hatteras in 1868.

[7] Completed in just under two years under the direction of brevet Brigadier General J. H. Simpson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the new Cape Hatteras lighthouse cost $167,000.

The Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration erected a series of wooden revetments which checked the wash that was carrying away the beach.

In 1942, when German U-boats began attacking ships just offshore, the Coast Guard resumed its control over the brick tower and manned it as a lookout station until 1945.

By then, due to accretion of sand on the beach, the brick tower was 500 to 900 feet (270 m) inland from the sea and again tenable as a site for the light, which was placed back in commission January 23, 1950.The new light consisted of a 36-inch (0.91 m) aviation-type rotating beacon of 250,000 candlepower, visible 20 miles (32 km), and flashing white every 7.5 seconds.

"[5] Today the Coast Guard owns and operates the navigational equipment, while the National Park Service maintains the tower as a historic structure.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, tallest in the United States,[5] stands 208 feet (63 m) from the bottom of the foundation to the peak of the roof.

The light is used and maintained by the U.S Coast Guard as an Aid to Navigation, protecting Mariners from the icy depths of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

In 1999, with the sea again encroaching, the Cape Hatteras lighthouse had to be moved from its original location at the edge of the ocean to safer ground.

International Chimney Corp. of Buffalo, New York was awarded the contract to move the lighthouse, assisted by, among other contractors, Expert House Movers.