North Carolina State Parks recently announced that attendance grew by 4% statewide last year, with most of the nine sites on the coast contributing to that growth.
Our Coast
Hertford’s quiet, rural setting, rich history add to its appeal
The seat of Perquimans County incorporated in 1758 and has never had more than 2,500 residents.
Ballance to bring Ocracoke history to Core Sound’s present
“Ocracokers” author and native Alton Ballance is to talk about the isolated island’s growth from a fishing village to a tourist destination.
Bebop drummer Max Roach kept coastal NC connections
Born in Newland near Elizabeth City, the late Max Roach was a pioneer in the mid-20th century New York jazz scene, and a civil rights advocate.
Ancestral odyssey: A Beautiful MLK Day in Piney Grove
Historian David Cecelski recounts spending the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Piney Grove with descendants of Caesar Evans, who escaped from slavery during the Civil War, fought in the Union army, and later bought 228 acres in central Brunswick County.
In ’76, oilman Walter Davis made a bet on the Outer Banks
He grew up on a soybean farm near Elizabeth City and his billion-dollar empire included for a time Southern Shores in Dare County, a different sort of asset that paid off.
Elizabeth City history traces back to early Colonial days
Elizabeth City’s roots can be traced back to the earliest days of the Colony and, though rural for centuries, is now a thriving college town.
Civilian Conservation Corps workers of Bell Island
Historian David Cecelski gives a glimpse of the North Carolina coast during the Great Depression from the perspective of the young men in Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps.
‘Rich Lands of New River’: Town retains ‘postcard’ charm
Though references to Richlands can be found in the early Colonial period, the Onslow County community began to grow in the early 1900s when it gained a railroad connection.
Foundation maps journey of its Lost Colony research
“Excavating the Lost Colony Mystery: The Map, the Search, the Discovery” is a compilation of essays and writings by historians, archaeologists and other experts on the last 20 years of research on Sir Walter Raleigh’s settlement.
State Parks to ring in new year with First Day Hikes for all
More than 50 ranger-led First Day Hikes of varying degrees of length and difficultly are planned for New Year’s Day across the state, including here on the coast.
Designer Lilias J. Morrison: Homes should ‘blend into land’
Reared in Northwest England, surrounded by botanical gardens and history, the unlikely developer says she “became a builder because local builders wouldn’t do anything except beach boxes.”
Making a Way: Army Corps of Engineers 1930-1932
Historian David Cecelski has compiled a selection of photographs from an album the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Office of History discovered in their historical collections a few years ago.
For Dave Rohde, a passion for fishing was also a lifesaver
Well-known surfboard shaper Dave Rohde of Kitty Hawk is also renowned as an expert fisherman and guide, and he credits fishing for saving him from self-destruction.
The other coup d’état: Remembering New Bern in 1898
Historian David Cecelski uses old newspaper clippings to show how Wilmington’s bloody takeover was not the only example of the state’s well organized and propaganda-fueled 1880s-1890s white supremacy movement.
When gathering wild pocosin cranberries was profitable
Colonial accounts of what is now Dare County make no mention of wild cranberries, but the holiday tradition is believed to have long existed in the pocosin and reporting on the crop dates back to the 19th century.
