Fort Macon has a rich history as a Civil War site, but its story also features an ambitious doctor named Elliott Coues, whose interest in the natural surroundings helped focus attention on environmental science in and around Beaufort.
Culture & History
Oyster Farming Offers Hope to Some
Farm-raised oysters offer some commercial fisherman a means to make a living during troubling times, but can the challenges be met?
Oysters Tell the Story of Our Coast
Nothing tells the complicated story of our coast like the oyster. Symbolically, it’s a prism that refracts details about how our state’s economy, environment and culture. Wrapped up in it, is a story about our coast’s past, present and future.
Sometimes, a Boat Tells a Story
The story of the freshly restored Deepwater spans from post-World War II Manteo through the halcyon days of Outer Banks charter fishing out of Oregon Inlet with legendary Capt. Lee Perry at the helm.
Waterfowl Weekend: A Down East Homecoming
Everyone’s invited to Harkers Island for the annual Core Sound Waterfowl Weekend and Decoy Festival. Decoy carving, boat building and other traditional coastal arts will be on display during a weekend that is both a celebration of Down East Carteret County and a homecoming.
Death, Duty and Yellow Fever
A yellow fever epidemic killed hundreds in Wilmington in 1862, including the doctors and ministers who felt duty bound to tend to the sick.
Our Coast: A Shelter During Segregation
For African-Americans in North Carolina, the hotels, restaurants and “juke joints” of Seabreeze, south of Wilmington, were their shelters in time of segregation. There they could enjoy Miss Sadie’s fritters and the swing of Count Basie.
Street Names Tell Ocracoke’s History
Who’s Ikey D and Nubbin? And where’s that poker game on Poker Players Lane? Ocracoke’s history is on display on its street signs.
The Lady Keeper of the Light
Charlotte Ann Mason was one of several female lighthouse keepers along the N.C. coast. As with the others, her identity remains largely in the shadows.
Carolina Plague & Nags Head
This weekend is the traditional start of the tourist season along the N.C. coast. Millions of people will flock to the state’s beaches this summer. The first tourists of the 19th century sought the “good air” around Nags Head to escape death.
Fish House Delights
In this essay, author and coastal native Bland Simpson pays tribute to Willy Phillips in Columbia, Eddie and Allison Willis on Harkers Island, John Haag on Oak Island and all the other fish house owners past and present along the N.C. coast.
Could Hatteras Be America’s First Colony?
Jamestown Virginia is the site of the first permanent English colony in the New World. Or is it? Recent archaeological findings could give that honor to Hatteras Island, and change history.
The Greening of Wilmington
Since 1925, the Cape Fear Garden Club has worked to make the city a prettier place. Its Azalea Festival provides the money for the club’s generous grant program to support education, beautification and stewardship.
The Mail Boat Aleta: Ocracoke’s Lifeline
Before email, before Instagram, mail to and from the islands of our coast went by boat. This is the story of one of those boats, the Aleta, which for almost 20 years was Ocracoke’s connection to the rest of the world.
New Clues Lead Westward
The search for the Lost Colony moved to the western reaches of Albermarle Sound where archeologists came across what one termed an “extraordinary discovery.”
This N.C. Christmas Went Down in History
The blizzard of 1989 created the only coastal white Christmas on record for North Carolina. Our naturalist, Sam Bland, recalls Hammocks Beach State Park that day.
