Chincoteague, VA Shirts

On the last Wednesday of each July, Chincoteague stops everything to watch horses swim. The tradition dates to 1925, when the island's volunteer firefighters, raising money for equipment after a string of terrible fires, revived an old practice: herding the wild ponies of neighboring Assateague across the channel at slack tide, the brief window when the water lies calm. The riders who bring them over are called saltwater cowboys, a title earned over decades and surrendered reluctantly. The rest of the year this is a working island of watermen, screen doors, and salt marsh, with a red-and-white striped lighthouse standing in the pines across the channel, lit since 1867. Our Chincoteague design catches the swim at midstream: ponies neck-deep in the channel, cowboys flanking the herd, and the striped lighthouse keeping watch above the treeline. It is the rare town whose defining event has four legs and no schedule beyond the tide. Local Chincoteague businesses will surface on this page as they join ShirtMap.