Book excerpt: The South Brunswick Islands--Holden Beach, Ocean Isle Beach, and Sunset Beach--are man-made barrier islands formed when the North Carolina section of the Intracoastal Waterway was constructed between 1930 and 1940. In the late 1940s, Odell Williamson dreamed of a tranquil, family-vacation island and began buying tracts of land that would later become Ocean Isle Beach. This seven-mile-long island was incorporated as the town of Ocean Isle Beach in 1959. Mannon C. Gore envisioned the three miles of Sunset Beach as a peaceful residential community when he purchased the island in 1955. With over eight miles of oceanfront, Holden Beach is the longest and the largest of the three islands in the group. Each island boasts a unique character and has remained quiet with pristine beaches and a focus on families.