WILMINGTON -- For its continuous support and promotion of East Coast surfing, a North Carolina Historical Highway Marker honoring East Coast Surfing will be dedicated Oct. 18 at Wrightsville Beach.

Surfing made a splash in North Carolina in August 1909 as the local newspaper touted a surfing contest to be held in Wilmington. The sport originated thousands of years ago in Hawaii but moved to the mainland in the early 20th century. Surfing continued to win popularity and in 2012 National Geographic named Wrightsville Beach one of the top 20 surfing towns in the world.

A reception hosted by the Wilmington Beach Museum of History will follow at the Blockade Runner Resort, 275 Waynick Boulevard. The marker unveiling will be in conjunction with the 2015 Wrightsville Beach Museum Waterman Hall of Fame inductions at 2 p.m.

UNC-Wilmington professor Chris Fonvielle will be master of ceremonies and North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Secretary Susan Kluttz will make remarks about the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program.

It is impossible to claim "firsts" in East Coast surfing, but the surfing experiments of Wilmington native Burke Haywood Bridgers certainly were among the earliest appearances of surfboards in the Atlantic Ocean. He had read a Colliers article in April 1910 and began experimenting with local boards in the Atlantic surf. Surfing in the Wrightsville Beach area in the early 1900s is the earliest documented in the U.S.

In addition to locals trying to figure out how to surf, the generally accepted advent of East coast surfing has been Duke Kahanamoku's 1912 visit to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he demonstrated surfing.

Surfing is big business in North Carolina. A 2011 socioeconomic profile of surfing in America tallied the annual economic impact of surfing in North Carolina as approximately $3,025,000. The North Carolina Maritime Museum is in the process of studying the state's surfing heritage for a future exhibit.

For additional information please call. The Highway Marker Program is collaboration between the North Carolina Departments of Natural and Cultural Resources and Transportation.