In 1914, Thomas Franklin Boyd, a businessman from Hamlet, North Carolina, purchased Bald Head Island with grand plans to turn it into a luxurious beach resort. Boyd’s inspiration came from the success of beach communities like Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach, located just to the north in New Hanover County. His own family had spent summers visiting relatives at Wrightsville Beach, and in 1909, Boyd had purchased a home at Carolina Beach, further fueling his vision of a resort community at Bald Head Island.
 

Renaming the Island and Early Development
Boyd rebranded Bald Head Island as Palmetto Island, signaling a new era for the once-quiet island. By 1924, Boyd’s development took a significant step forward with the construction of the Palmetto Island Inn. According to architectural drawings preserved in the New Hanover County Public Library collection, the Inn was designed to be a grand structure. The building featured a large sitting room, dining room, and piano room on the first floor, while the second floor was home to sixteen guest rooms. The Inn was constructed using wood and covered with cedar shakes, a material common for beach homes and coastal resorts. A spacious porch on the front of the building offered stunning views of the Cape Fear River and beyond. To facilitate guest access, a pier extended into the river, allowing steamships to dock and bring visitors from Southport and Wilmington.
 

The Boyd Hotel and Expansion Plans
Shortly after the completion of the Palmetto Island Inn, Boyd expanded his development with the construction of a larger, three-story hotel near the Inn. This new Boyd Hotel was built from white bricks and was said to be a significant structure in its time. Frank C. Payne, a resident of the Boyd Hotel in the 1930s, provided firsthand accounts of the building. Payne recalled the hotel’s layout, which included eight or nine guest rooms on the first floor and additional rooms on the upper stories. The hotel was a blend of materials: the basement, first, and second floors were constructed of brick, while the third story was made of wood. Payne's memories suggest the Boyd Hotel was a bustling center of activity during its brief existence.
 

The Fall of Palmetto Island
Despite Boyd’s ambitious plans, Palmetto Island never achieved the commercial success he had hoped for. Several factors contributed to its failure. Transportation difficulties made it hard for visitors to reach the island, as the resort relied on steamships that were limited in their ability to consistently bring guests from the mainland. Moreover, hurricanes struck the island multiple times, including devastating storms that destroyed both the Palmetto Island Inn and the Boyd Hotel. Finally, the onset of the Great Depression in the late 1920s further strained Boyd’s venture, and the resort never recovered from these setbacks.
 

As a result, Palmetto Island faded into obscurity, leaving only the pile of white-brick rubble from the Boyd Hotel as a physical reminder of the ambitious resort that never came to fruition. However, some pieces of its history have been preserved. Charlie Young, an early island resident, saved a brick press that had been used to manufacture the bricks for the Boyd Hotel. This brick press is now on exhibit in the base of Old Baldy Lighthouse, connecting the island’s past with its present.
 

Legacy of Palmetto Island
While Palmetto Island itself never flourished as Boyd envisioned, the story of his attempt to develop the island remains a fascinating chapter in Bald Head Island's history. Boyd’s ambition and the remnants of his buildings offer a glimpse into what might have been—a bustling beach resort on a pristine barrier island, welcoming visitors from near and far. Today, the island is a popular destination in its own right, though in a different form, with an emphasis on conservation, nature, and quiet retreats rather than the grand beach resort Boyd had hoped to create.