The world watched in horror 114 years ago as the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank into the North Atlantic. But for nearly a century, a critical piece of that night’s history was hiding in the walls of a small building in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
The Hatteras Weather Bureau Station is the only wireless station in the United States to have caught the Titanic’s first distress call. At 11:25 p.m. on April 14th, operators recorded the chilling words: "CQD. Have struck an iceberg. We are badly damaged."
Amazingly, the record of this transmission wasn't found in a vault. It was discovered in 2009, rolled up inside a wall where it had been used as makeshift insulation during a past renovation. It took nearly 100 years for the paper to see the light of day.
While distance prevented Hatteras from launching a rescue, the logbook proves the signal reached American shores far earlier than previously thought. Today, that original scrap of history is on display at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras Village.
