The Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station in Rodanthe is the best-preserved example of the U.S. Life-Saving Service's work on the Outer Banks. The original 1874 station — the first operational Life-Saving Service station in North Carolina — still stands alongside a larger replacement building from 1911, a boat room, cook's quarters, and a watch tower.
The service sent crews out in surfboats to reach shipwrecked sailors in all weathers, using breeches buoy rigging to haul survivors ashore when the sea was too rough for boats. The museum inside tells this story with equipment, photographs, and records of rescues going back to the 1870s. Reenactments of breeches buoy drills are held regularly during the summer season.