KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. — The Wright brothers never flew in Kitty Hawk.
Just ask Sherry Rollason, mayor of Kill Devil Hills, the tiny Outer Banks community that surrounds the spot where Wilbur and Orville made their camp.
"They came to Kitty Hawk and they flew at Kill Devil Hills," Rollason, mayor since 1997, reminds anyone who asks.
A century ago, when Wilbur and Orville came here from Dayton and made the world's first successful flights of a powered, heavier-than-air machine, Kitty Hawk was the only nearby village with a post office. Kill Devil Hills was just a small cluster of homes dominated by the sand dunes where the Wrights flew their gliders.
But today, Kill Devil Hills, a town with approximately 6,500 year-round residents, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It encircles the Wright brothers' site, now the Wright Brothers National Memorial.
It's also ground zero for the First Flight Centennial Celebration.
Thousands of organizers, dignitaries, journalists and visitors have been descending on the Outer Banks since last week, and the tide is expected to rise through today's centennial ceremony. The White House last week said President Bush will attend the ceremony, which is to include an attempt to re-enact Orville's history-making 12-second flight with a replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer.
While heavy rain Sunday canceled most scheduled events and kept crowds thin, the National Park Service estimated 17,500 visited on Saturday for a daily air show, aviation displays and musical entertainment. The Park Service has sold all of the 35,000 tickets it printed for today's ceremony, and more than 700 journalists have registered for the event.
"I tell people we're having a July 4th weekend in the middle of December," Rollason said.
The narrow islands have limited access that has complicated planning for the events. Shuttle buses run visitors between the memorial and park and the mainland.
The prospect of Bush's visit has added another layer of complexity. Visitors must pass through security checkpoints with metal detectors like those a Miami Valley crowd faced July 4th when the president dropped in on the Re/Max Inventing Flight balloon festival at the U.S. Air Force Museum.
And it all comes as the region is still recovering from Hurricane Isabel, which ravaged the island in September.
"A lot of people put in some very long hours" to clean up the rubble, said Angie Brady-Daniels of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce.
"We know this is not a local event. This is a national and international event."
Much of the area surrounding the memorial bears little evidence of the storm, but sections of Virginia Dare Trail, running down the ocean side of the island, still looks as if the Marines came through here on their way to Baghdad — cottages smashed or knocked off their wooden supports, lots recently bulldozed, wind-drifted sand intruding on the roadway.
Most businesses on the Outer Banks are seasonal, catering to summer visitors, and are normally closed for the winter by now. But Brady-Daniels said many remained open for the celebration.
"Tourism is our No. 1 industry. It brings in about $2.1 billion a year. It's important for us to put on a good show here and encourage people to come back," she said.
Among the special guests gathering here are descendents of the Wright brothers and the local families who helped and befriended them.
Amanda Wright Lane of Cincinnati, great-grandniece of the Wright brothers, said the celebration has become a family reunion for the clan.
"I believe we've counted 59 of us here, and I only know about 35 of them," she said.
And her brother, Stephen Wright of Oakwood, Ohio, speculated that two more might be present on Wednesday when a team attempts to re-enact the flight.
"I hope a little of Wil and Orv will be smiling down on them," he said.