Elizabeth City State University biology students have become the first researchers from a historically Black college or university to participate in the American Campus Tree Genome Project and have their work accepted into a worldwide genetic database.

The research on one of the oldest oak trees on campus is now publicly available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information, or NCBI, one of the world’s largest repositories of genetic information.  

HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a nonprofit research lab in Alabama, began the American Campus Tree Genomes initiative to provide students a way to interact with the latest genome sequencing technologies.

The project involved biological research students Nicole Villardi, Camdyn Peck, Laneya Evans, Zakiya Sledge, Nyaziah Sears, Justin Franklin, Juelle St. Clair and Angelina Sanchez, and Dr. Alex Harkess, Lauren Whitt and Sarah Carey, all with HudsonAlpha.

Margaret Young, professor of biology and faculty expert in plant tissue culture at Elizabeth City State, said Friday in the release that the project marked a significant milestone for both the university and the HBCU community.   

“We are the first HBCU to be part of the American Campus Tree Genome Project, part of Dr. Harkess’ National Science Foundation CAREER grant. This is the first time that we are sequencing/annotating a tree on this campus and having the data readily available on NCBI,” Young said.   

Students collected leaves from an oak tree near the G.R. Little Library on campus and extracted high-quality DNA that was sent to HudsonAlpha for sequencing. Researchers returned the data to the university for the students to analyze before submitting the completed work to NCBI. The research is now available on the international database.

Young said each step of the process required a level of precision and expertise that is uncommon for undergraduate researchers.   

“We were praised by Dr. Harkess. Plant DNA can be difficult to extract due to the tough cell walls and the fact that plants store their waste and have secondary compounds in their cells,” she said.   

Unlike traditional laboratory courses, where experiments are often completed within a few hours, this project took an investment of several days.

“Extracting the DNA took several tries, about 8 hours each from start to finish. This would not work in a traditional lab setting, which is two to three hours,” Young said. “Annotating also took several hours. Luckily, the students had done Computer Programming and could figure out the coding when there were hiccups. Dr. Harkess’s staff also helped polish the data. In a course such as Biological Research, there is a lot of latitude—defined meeting times, plus meeting times each week the students decide upon, which makes it ideal for such a project.”   

Elizabeth City State University will present in April a special concert honoring two jazz greats.

The John Coltrane/Miles Davis Centennial Celebration is scheduled for 7 p.m. April 14 at the Floyd L. Robinson Auditorium inside the Mickey L. Burnim Fine Arts Center. Doors open at 6 p.m.

Scheduled to perform are the university’s Jazz Ensemble with guest artists Dr. Steven Cunningham, Cedric Easton, Dennis Figgs, Christian Howes, Stephanie Sanders, Shannah Boone and Jeremy Ward, and a special performance by the Arts of the Albemarle River City Strings.

“Join ECSU for a night when history, artistry, and community come together to celebrate the enduring legacy of jazz and the icons who defined it,” organizers said.

The program is part of Elizabeth City State’s Community Connections performance and lecture series, and is sponsored and supported through a combination of student fees and a private donation from Phyllis Bosomworth, a former member of the university’s Board of Trustees.  

While there is no charge to attend, those interested are encouraged to register in advance through www.ecsu.edu/community-connections. For additional information, contact ecsucommunityconnections@ecsu.edu.  

For the first time in eight months, North Carolina is drought-free.

In its latest advisory issued Thursday, the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council, or DMAC, announced that the state is, for the first time since Oct. 15, 2024, free of drought or abnormally dry conditions.

“Due (to) the drought’s timing in winter and spring, impacts were limited, since it occurred at a time when water demands are typically lower,” Klaus Albertin, chair of the DMAC, said in a release. “Reservoir operators were able to control releases to keep water levels near target. There were some limited report impacts to agriculture. We did see an active wildfire season amid the drought and dry conditions.”

Though much of the state has experienced dry conditions since last fall, the coastal plain has suffered the largest rainfall deficits. Wilmington, for example, had a near 15-inch rainfall deficit compared to the 30-year average for that same amount of time, between October of last year and mid-April, according to the North Carolina State Climate Office.

Despite the drought, eastern North Carolina was hit with a band of storms that brought significant rain and localized flooding to the area. A number of heavy rain events this month already have put Elizabeth City on pace for its wettest June on record, according to the state Climate Office.

A total of 6.52 inches of rain had fallen on the city as of June 17. Greenville had a total of 6.71 inches of rain between June 15-16, making it that city’s wettest two-day period since Hurricane Florence in 2018.

“The dryness that began in October of 2024 began tapering off in March and regular, sometimes heavy, rain since then has brought streamflow, reservoir levels, and soil conditions back to normal,” Albertin said in the release. “We shifted out of the La Niña pattern, which allowed regular cold fronts to come through, along with heavy rains.”

The DMAC updates the drought map every Thursday. The council is made up of drought experts from different government agencies in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, and it is organized by the N. C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources.

DMAC members meet weekly and submit their drought condition recommendations to the national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Drought Mitigation Center. The Thursday updates, which are based on conditions through the previous Tuesday, are provided to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a map of drought conditions throughout the nation. 

“An Evening of Jazz: Celebrating Max Roach,” set for 6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17, in Elizabeth City honors the jazz drummer and Pasquotank County native a week after what would have been his 100th birthday.

Being held in the Museum of the Albemarle‘s Gaither Auditorium, Douglas Jackson, professor of music at Elizabeth City State University, is set to speak about the life and accomplishments of Roach.

Also during the celebration, there will be a performance by Elizabeth City native Thomas Taylor and his mentor David Albert, who played a significant role in his music education, and accompanying musicians.

“Roach was a master percussionist whose rhythmic innovations defined bebop jazz,” according to the museum.

Roach was born Jan. 10, 1924, in Newland, a township that borders the Great Dismal Swamp, and died Aug. 16, 2007, in New York, New York. During his career, he performed with music greats Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz and others.

The National Endowment for the Arts calls Roach “one of the two leading drummers of the bebop era (along with Kenny Clarke) and was one of the leading musicians, composers, and bandleaders in jazz since the 1940s.”

The program is supported by Friends of the Museum of the Albemarle, North Carolina Museum of History Associates, The Elizabeth City Foundation, and Southern Bank of Elizabeth City.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it had partnered with Greyhound in expanding bus service to Elizabeth City State University to make it easier for people to access the state and national intercity bus network.

“We’re thrilled about this new on-campus Greyhound stop that will benefit the university and city alike,” said Brennon Fuqua, director of the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Integrated Mobility Division, in the announcement. “This is the latest example of how working in partnership on transportation projects and goals increases access to a robust, reliable and safe transportation network statewide and, ultimately, beyond.”

The new stop at the university’s K.E. White Center offers two trips per day, seven days a week. The expanded service also increases travel options to destinations such as Richmond, Myrtle Beach, and elsewhere along NCDOT’s Coastal Plains Connector. Greyhound buses provide passengers with onboard Wi-Fi, comfortable seats, and charging outlets at every seat, the department said.

“Elizabeth City State University is proud to strengthen our partnerships within our community and beyond,” said Nichole Lewis, assistant vice chancellor and dean of students at ECSU. “This new Greyhound stop provides our students, faculty, and the wider community with affordable and reliable access to and from campus. It’s a meaningful addition that also opens greater access to our campus venues and facilities, furthering our commitment to making ECSU a choice destination for education and engagement.”

Officials said the new stop highlights ongoing work the Integrated Mobility Division has been doing to increase transportations options, access to new destinations and align transit options and schedules with other available transportation modes, like NC By Train, the state’s intercity passenger rail service and Amtrak which provides passenger rail service nationwide. It also meets NCDOT’s commitment to ensuring access to necessary goods and services, healthcare and educational opportunities, officials said.

“The new ECSU stop offers students, faculty, and community members a convenient, affordable way to stay connected,” said Karina Frayter, head of communications at Flix North America. “Working alongside ECSU and NCDOT on this project underscores our commitment to making essential travel more accessible for university communities across North America.”

Passengers can book tickets and learn more about Greyhound’s service by visiting Greyhound.com or using the Greyhound mobile app.

Dr. Karrie Dixon, who has led Elizabeth City State University since 2018, has been elected as the new chancellor for North Carolina Central University.

Dixon is succeeding Johnson O. Akinleye, who is retiring June 30 after eight years leading the N.C. Central in Durham. She will begin her appointment on July 1.

The UNC Board of Governors, which is the policy making body for the University of North Carolina System, announced the appointment Thursday.

“Being a part of this incredible community of scholars, innovators and leaders on the sloping hills and verdant green is a dream come true,” Dixon said in a release. “NCCU embodies grit, innovation, leadership, purpose and legacy, and I am committed to building on our rich traditions and ensuring that our students, faculty, staff and alumni have the tools and opportunities necessary to succeed. I can’t wait to engage with all the possibilities that Durham has to offer.”

According to the Board of Governors, Dixon grew enrollment at Elizabeth City State “by nearly 70%, raised $24 million in private gifts and built partnerships that led to nearly $300 million in state and federal funding for facilities, infrastructure and academic programs” and raised employee morale from lowest in the UNC System to the highest.

UNC System President Peter Hans recommended Dixon following a national search that drew more than 50 candidates, resulting in three finalists endorsed by the N.C. Central’s Board of Trustees, according to the board.

“Karrie Dixon has been a widely admired leader in our university System for more than two decades,” Hans said. “She’s known for building great teams and taking on big challenges with honesty and optimism. I’m excited for NC Central and grateful to Chancellor Dixon for her commitment to this state.”

N.C. Central’s Board of Trustees Chair Kevin Holloway said that the university is “thrilled to have a dynamic new chancellor in Dr. Karrie Dixon to accelerate the growth of our great institution so our students and graduates can fully compete in a global economy.”

A first-generation college graduate, Dixon holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from N.C. State University, a master’s degree in speech communication from UNC Greensboro, and a doctorate in higher education administration from N.C. State University.

Dixon has worked within the UNC System for 23 years, moving up the ranks in academic positions at the system office, including as vice president for academic and student affairs, senior associate vice president for academic and student affairs and assistant vice president for academic and student affairs.

Previously she was assistant vice provost at N.C. State University, and before that served as a program assessment consultant in N.C. State’s Department of Chemical Engineering. She was an adjunct assistant professor at N.C. State’s College of Education, and taught communication at N.C. State and UNC Greensboro.

“This is a great day for North Carolina Central University,” said UNC Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey. “Karrie Dixon has made enormous contributions to eastern North Carolina during her years of service to Elizabeth City State University and will now be a tremendous leader for another of our state’s important public HBCUs. I congratulate her and look forward to seeing what this new chapter holds.”

Though the downtown is now a collection of mostly 20th century buildings, Elizabeth City, the center of Pasquotank County government and trade, has roots going back to the earliest years of the Colony.

The area around Elizabeth City, originally home to the Chowan and Weapemeoc, was one of the first settled by the English in North Carolina.

Its recorded past can be traced back to one of the founding acts of the Colony in 1665, when a group met at Halls Creek and established North Carolina’s original legislative assembly.

This group acted prior to the 1669 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, the founding government document of the Carolinas that is now attributed to philosopher John Locke.

Though many of the Colony’s 1665 laws changed drastically in the decades that followed, today’s state government can be linked to this meeting on a knoll just 6 miles from today’s downtown Elizabeth City.

In 1910, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a marker at what they believed to be the site.

The area that would become Elizabeth City remained small and rural throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Nixonton, one of the first towns in North Carolina located on the Little River, was a commercial meeting place nearby.

Pasquotank County, founded in 1668, had a courthouse located at different points in the county before settling at Nixonton in the late 18th century.

Elizabeth City’s importance to the region can be traced to 1795 when a hurricane hit Albemarle Sound and silted up Edenton’s access to the Albemarle. Edenton depended on the Albemarle, but Elizabeth City took advantage of the newly constructed Dismal Swamp Canal and became a center for local and coastal trade.

Elizabeth City began to thrive as the town’s population grew in the years after its 1793 incorporation.

This population included a number of free African Americans who moved to the area to escape harsher legal treatment in Virginia.

The city hosted a number of artisanal shops, cabinet makers, and other features of a growing Southern town, making the city an early target during the Civil War.

It was vulnerable to Ambrose Burnside’s force from Roanoke Island. Citizens set the town on fire prior to the Union Army’s advance and fled on foot, leaving it a “dead town … dead as a graveyard,” as a Union Army officer described it.

Elizabeth City’s burning in 1862 contributed to its current cityscape.

Instead of having large surviving stretches of antebellum buildings like nearby Edenton or Hertford, Elizabeth City’s historical architecture is dominated by its late 19th century rebuilding.

The city is home to a considerable collection of Victorian dwellings. They line Main Street and can be found on Church and Road streets as well.

Author Catherine Bishir, curator of Architectural Records Special Collections at North Carolina State University Libraries, describes West Main Street as containing “a remarkably solid, varied, and intact grouping of closely placed late 19th- and early 20th-c. homes,” where at one point “a rhythmic row of multigabled Queen Anne dwellings nearly abuts the sidewalk.”

This rebuilding was powered by the city’s continued position as a center of trade and industry.

By 1896, Elizabeth City was home to 14 mills, three newspapers, 10 boarding houses and hotels, and a textile factory.

These businesses, along with the growth of peanut farming, helped push the city to become a center of economic and industrial prosperity in the region.

In the 20th century, Elizabeth City became a social and cultural center as well as an economic one.

Home to the Albemarle’s only historically Black university, Elizabeth City State University was founded in 1891 as a teacher’s college for Black men and women.

Elizabeth City State has since become an influential educational institution, training thousands of teachers and graduating distinguished alumni.

One of its earliest presidents, Harold Trigg, became the first Black member of the state Board of Education in 1949. In 1960, Elizabeth City also became the home of the College of the Albemarle, one of the state’s oldest community colleges. 

Like many other eastern towns, Elizabeth City was not immune to the economic forces of deindustrialization in the late 20th century. Its population stagnated between 1960 and 2000. Many of the town’s mills closed, and its downtown emptied.

Lori Meads, education coordinator at the Museum of the Albemarle, has lived in Elizabeth City her entire life. She remembers frequent visits in her childhood to the multiple department stores downtown, all of which have closed.

Despite these challenges, Elizabeth City’s embrace of education and tourism earlier in the 20th century have helped keep it vibrant and successful into the 21st. There is some debate over the future of this vibrancy, however, specifically whether or not Elizabeth City will become a suburb of the sprawling Hampton Roads region.

Residents can certainly see the allure of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and other major nearby cities.

“Of course, people go up to Hampton Roads,” Meads said. “They have Top Golf.”

But, Meads emphasized, Elizabeth City has done enough work to offer amenities, businesses, and attractions within the city limits to keep people in town and prevent it from becoming just another bedroom community.

Taken on its own, the city has a number of attractive features to both old and potential new residents. It is a college town, with its two institutions of higher learning with a combined population of around 7,000 students, and many of its old buildings are being renovated and filled with coffee shops and boutiques.

There are museums, breweries and events like the Potato Festival, which takes over the city every May.

The effort to conserve three dugout canoes excavated in the late 1980s from Lake Phelps within Pettigrew State Park will be the focus of the Museum of the Albemarle’s monthly History for Lunch.

Kimberly Kenyon, head conservator for the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology’s Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab in Greenville, will give the presentation scheduled for noon Wednesday, Nov. 15.

The program is being offered in person in the Gaither Auditorium inside the museum at 501 S. Water St., Elizabeth City, and through Zoom. To attend virtually, register in advance to receive the link.

Kenyon oversees the conservation of the three dugout canoes excavated from Lake Phelps in the state park located in Washington and Tyrrell counties 75 miles northeast of Greenville.

Kenyon will share the history of Native American activity around Lake Phelps, the discovery of dozens of canoes in the lake, and initial conservation measures taken for those recovered.  She also will discuss the renewed efforts to stabilize the canoes so that they are preserved for generations to come.

The virtual program is supported by Friends of the Museum of the Albemarle.

The Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City through a new exhibition will explore the work of carvers, cabinetmakers, furniture makers, and carpenters who have been creating throughout time objects to serve as functional, social, and aesthetic pieces of work

“Crafting from Wood,” organizers said, “explores the gift of crafting treasures from wood while highlighting the training and abilities of the crafter.”

Opening Nov. 11, the exhibit will have on display objects from 18th century furniture-making shops, undertakers, cabinet makers, and modern woodcrafts.

“This exhibit acknowledges the individuals and organizations tirelessly working to acquire, restore, and save furnishings and structures for the rich treasures that they are,” organizers added.

The following activities at the museum are in conjunction with the exhibit:

• History for Lunch noon Nov. 1. Bill Barber will provide insight into the timber boom that swept across coastal North Carolina following the Civil War, creating employment and industry in coastal counties.
• Tot Time 10 a.m. Nov. 9. Participants 3 to 5 years of age and accompanied by an adult will read a book and engage in a hands-on activity to discover the art of crafting treasures from wood.
• Public Day 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 11. There will be educational activities to highlight tools and crafters identified in the new exhibit. Sign out a carpenter’s apron with tools at the second floor reception desk. 
• Annual Designer Workshop 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 18. The workshop will focus around “Crafted from Wood.” A supply fee and registration are required to secure a seat. A light lunch and supplies are included.

The Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City will host the traveling exhibit “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” Jan. 24 through March 8.

“Crossroads: Change in Rural America,” a Museum on Main Street exhibition, offers small towns a chance to look at their own paths to highlight the changes that affected their fortunes over the past century..

To complement the traveling exhibit made possible through the Smithsonian Institution and the North Carolina Humanities Council, the museum is to have on display Jan. 24 until November photographs of “Century and Bicentennial Farms of northeastern North Carolina.”

“According to the State Agriculture Overview, in 2021 there were over 45,000 farms operating in North Carolina with 8.3 million acres being farmed. Soybeans dominated the harvest with over 1.65 million acres planted. As of December 2022, over 1,500 of these farms have been placed on North Carolina’s Century Farm registry, with 186 of these farms located here in the Albemarle region,” according to the museum press release.

“Farms that have applied for inclusion must have been owned by the same family for over 100 years. Gates County has the largest number in our region with 48. Over 100 farms in the state have received their certificate as a Bicentennial Farm. Four are within the Albemarle region,” the museum continues.

The Museum of the Albemarle is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

“Crossroads: Change in Rural America” is a Museum on Main Street exhibition. These exhibitions are available for booking by state humanities councils or other statewide organizations but are not available for general rental by individual venues.

Along with the museum in Elizabeth City, the traveling exhibit will be in the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village, Friends of the Great Falls Discovery Center in Massachusetts and Mead Cultural Education Center in South Dakota to host the traveling exhibit.

Reprinted from The Daily Advance

Elizabeth City has never paid a lobbyist to advocate for the city before the General Assembly but that is about to change.

City council’s finance committee unanimously voted last week to begin the process of hiring former state Sen. Bob Steinburg as the city’s lobbyist in Raleigh. All eight councilors serve on the finance committee.

Steinburg, who lost his bid for reelection in the May Republican primary, resigned from the state Senate July 31 to pursue work as a lobbyist.

While Steinburg is able to recruit clients, he can’t officially begin lobbying efforts until Feb. 1. State law requires that state lawmakers spend a “6-month cooling off period” after leaving the General Assembly before becoming a lobbyist. Steinburg resigned in July so he could begin lobbying efforts in next year’s session of the General Assembly.

City Councilor Johnson Biggs raised the issue of hiring a lobbyist at Monday’s meeting so that the city can have someone in the state’s capital seeking state money for projects. Pasquotank currently retains Jackson Stancil as its lobbyist. It previously retained the McClees Consulting firm.

The General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene for a long session sometime in January.

“What (Steinburg) would be providing us with is access to leaders, budget writers in the General Assembly,” Biggs said. “(Steinburg) could uncover opportunities for additional funding that we may not know about. (Steinburg) could also help us get appointments that we otherwise wouldn’t get with leadership on both sides in the House and Senate.’’

Steinburg served six years in the House before being elected to a pair of two-year terms in the state Senate, which Biggs said is a plus.

“Given Sen. Steinburg was a colleague of these individuals, it is going to give us a little better access than if one of us picks up the phone and calls one of the chief budget writers,” Biggs said. “Those people at the table making these decisions are not from northeast North Carolina.”

Biggs said a strong estimate of paying Steinburg would be $36,000 a year, or $3,000 a month. Council unanimously approved negotiating an agreement with Steinburg that would be brought back to City Council for final approval.

“We will hammer out some details and bring it back,” Biggs said.

Mayor Kirk Rivers said that the city needs representation in the state capital. Rivers does not vote unless there is a tie among the eight councilors.

“I know in the past several weeks, I’ve said I am going to go to Raleigh but it seems that something always comes up and we never make it to Raleigh,” Rivers said. “We have a lot of needs and we need to have someone constantly in Raleigh to call.”

Councilor Johnnie Walton agreed with Rivers, saying the city needs someone “at the table” in Raleigh.

“If you are not at the table, you don’t know what is on the menu,” Walton said. “(Steinburg) has been touching shoulders with a lot of the people that are in Raleigh and that will be an asset. We need contacts and I think it possibly could be a good thing.’’

Councilor Javis Gibbs said Steinburg’s service in the General Assembly speaks for itself.

“(Steinburg) has a passion for northeastern North Carolina,” Gibbs said. “Sometimes you have to spend money to make money and I think this will be a good investment overall.’’

Councilor Joe Peel, who is a former mayor, said in the past the city felt it didn’t need a lobbyist because the area’s representatives “were fairly local.” Steinburg, of Chowan, was defeated in the GOP primary by state Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico, in the newly configured 1st Senate District that stretches all the way to Carteret County.

“We knew them and that has changed,” Peel said.

If the proposal is approved, the city wouldn’t start paying Steinburg until February.

“My whole purpose is to only have clients in northeastern North Carolina to work with them and help them,” Steinburg said.

Steinburg said that even though he couldn’t be paid until next year he would be willing to meet with city leaders to discuss priorities for next year’s legislative session. He said he can now legally go out and solicit clients like the city but that any contracts he signs have to have a start date of Feb. 1, 2023.

“I can meet with them, plan with them, but I can’t advocate for them until Feb. 1,” Steinburg said. “I can’t be paid 10 cents until Feb. 1.”

Steinburg said he will also advocate for the city at the federal level if needed, most likely with the assistance of another lobbyist. If that happens, Steinburg would pay that lobbyist out of the money he receives monthly from the city.

“The city would not have to pay anybody else,” Steinburg said. “I would be able to use my contacts with the folks up in Washington after Feb. 1.”

Rivers said that City Council will need to also need to be involved in lobbying efforts going forward.

“We still have to follow up,” Rivers said. “We have to go up at least once every two months to make sure we are constantly contacting our legislators.’’

The city may be just the first of Steinburg’s potential clients in the area. Camden County Manager Erin Burke confirmed Friday that Camden commissioners plan to hold a special meeting Wednesday where one of the topics for discussion will be a proposal to hire Steinburg as a lobbyist.

Burke said the county previously retained a paid lobbyist but hadn’t had one in at least three years.

According to Daily Advance archives, Camden commissioners hired McClees Consulting in January 2015 and then voted to end the contract nearly four years later, in December 2018. At the time, the county was paying McClees $20,000 a year for two years.

The Daily Advance is a newspaper based in Elizabeth City and serving Chowan, Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. Coastal Review is partnering with The Daily Advance to provide readers with more stories of interest about our coast.

United States Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City is celebrating its 82nd birthday Monday, just weeks after the Coast Guard’s 232-year anniversary Aug. 4.

Now the Coast Guard’s largest aviation facility and biggest employer in the area, the base on the south side of Elizabeth City covers some 800 acres, a far cry from the original 249 acres when it first began operations Aug. 15, 1940.

When the station was commissioned, there were only four officers, 52 enlisted men and 10 aircraft including three Hall PH-2 seaplanes, four Fairchild J2K landplanes, and three Grumman JF-2 amphibians, according to Coast Guard Aviation History, a project of the Coast Guard Aviation Association.

Today, there is a combined workforce of around 2,000 Coast Guard personnel and civilian employees, making it the largest employer in northeastern North Carolina, according to the state archives.

The station’s core mission is search and rescue, but it also has aerial patrols as diverse as iceberg tracking in the Atlantic to monitoring shipping from the Atlantic Coast to the Azores.

Until recently, the base handled the training of the service’s rescue swimmers. After 30 years here, the training has temporarily moved to Petaluma, California. The renovated facility should reopen in 2025, according to the Coast Guard website.

Although Elizabeth City is one of the largest and busiest Coast Guard bases in the nation, there seems to be very little documentation of its earliest days.

From its beginning, Elizabeth City was an air base. It is not clear why Elizabeth City was chosen for what would become one of the most important Coast Guard and Naval facilities on the East Coast during World War II.

It is likely that the late Lindsay Warren played an important role. Warren was a Democrat who represented the 1st District encompassing northeastern North Carolina, from 1925 to 1940. He was briefly the speaker of the House before becoming the nation’s comptroller general in 1940.

Aycock Brown, in his “Covering the Waterfront” column that he wrote for the Beaufort News in the 1930s and 1940s, took note of 1939 headlines to speculate on what could be happening at Elizabeth City, suggesting Warren played an important part in bringing the base to the area.

One of the headlines originated in Elizabeth City, the other was from Washington, D.C.

“The Elizabeth City story stated that work began there Tuesday on the $128,000 WPA project which will when completed, be a modern and up-to-date Coast Guard Air Base, obtained through the efforts of Congressman Lindsay Warren,” Brown wrote.

“The Washington story under the caption: ‘Warren Has Hopes For Ocean Air Base’ quoted the congressman as saying he was looking into the possibility of Elizabeth City, N.C., becoming an airbase for trans-Atlantic plane service.”

Brown’s $128,000 from Works Progress Administration was dwarfed by the $2 million, or $42.3 million today, that the government actually spent on the facility. Also called Work Projects Administration, the WPA was created in 1935 for the unemployed under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Neither the base nor the city ever became a center for trans-Atlantic plane service, but what it did become was an important facility for confronting the U-boats that brought World War II to the doorstep of the nation.

While Warren may have played a role in steering the Coast Guard to Elizabeth City, there were other factors also at play.

Even though the United States was ill-prepared for open warfare when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, government officials were aware that the world was becoming an increasingly dangerous place and were taking steps to protect vital interests.

Chesapeake Bay and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia was one of the largest ports on the East Coast, and had the open water needed for the seaplanes the Coast Guard was using.

The Virginia ports, though, were open to the sea, and Elizabeth City’s inland location was important to planners.

A document provided by Dr. William H. Thiesen, Atlantic area historian for the Coast Guard, offers a clue to what planners were thinking.

The document seems to be a study of how the Coast Guard’s air bases in general were used during World War II, although there is no date on it. The study’s author is unknown, and the pages are marked “confidential.”

“While the station was primarily intended as a major overhaul base for the eastern seaboard, the location of the base nevertheless was selected with a view of its strategic importance in regard to possible enemy action in time of war,” the study’s author wrote. “The new site was ideal, the most advantageous location between New York and Miami. In a sheltered area, north of Albemarle Sound and some fifty or sixty miles from Cape Hatteras, the station was built on the sloping banks of the Pasquotank River.”

Initially most of the flights were mapping exercises and law enforcement, especially enforcement of the Neutrality Acts. The Neutrality Acts were designed to keep the United States out of the warfare that was so much a part of the decade. Although modified and eventually rendered irrelevant, the acts prohibited U.S. flagged ships from carrying weapons of war to belligerent nations.

It was enforcement of the Neutrality Act of 1939 that Roosevelt used to expand and modernize the Coast Guard, informing Congress in an executive order “that a national emergency exists in connection with …proper observance, safeguarding, and enforcing of the neutrality of the United States…”

He went on to authorize the Coast Guard to add 2,000 more men and to order the “… facilities of the Coast Guard be increased, repaired, modernized, enlarged, and equipped to the extent determined by the Secretary of the Treasury …”

With the declaration of war, the Coast Guard was directed to operate as part of the Navy, and one of the primary functions of the base was the interdiction of German submarines. It was a function Coast Guard aircraft were ill-suited to perform.

“Initially there were very few resources available to combat the German submarines. The Coast Guard aircraft, not designed for combat, were equipped with locally fabricated depth charge racks and pressed into service,” notes United States Coast Guard Aviation History website.

It was extraordinarily frustrating for the pilots, according to the confidential study.

“Daily, merchant vessels were being sunk, while pilots stood by helplessly, unable to do more than turn in an outraged report,” the study continues, “It was not until December, 1943, that adequate fighting planes were procured. By that time the submarine danger was almost over.”

Yet the air crews saved lives, though the rescues were dangerous. Aviation History combines all air station activity indicating that more than 1,000 were rescued and with 95 landings.

“Three OS2U Kingfishers on a routine patrol spotted men in the water 30 miles east of Cape Hatteras. Depth charges were dropped in an area where it would not injure the men. All three aircraft landed and picked up all the survivors who rested on the wings until a boat arrived from the Elizabeth City air station to pick them up,” is one of the stories on the website.

By the end of the war, the base had returned to much of its original mission of rescue. Aggressive patrolling by U.S. military aircraft and communication with naval ships made the East Coast too dangerous for the submarines.

After the war, Elizabeth City, now greatly expanded, became a training and repair hub for the Coast Guard, as well as an air patrol base, functions that have continued until today.

In the main lobby of the Museum of the Albemarle from Aug. 12 to Oct. 14 two soybean harvesters from the early 20th century are to be on display.

The temporary exhibit is in the Elizabeth City museum is in conjunction with the unveiling Aug. 12 of an updated North Carolina Highway Historical Marker dedicated to soybean processing.

Visitors to the museum will be able to see a 1920 soybean harvester manufactured in Elizabeth City by the Gordon Bean and Pea Harvester Co., invited by resident LeRoy S. Gordon, born 1866 and died 1955. Church Street resident George Pritchard, born 1883 and died 1947, also patented his own model in the 1920s as well.

The original North Carolina Highway Historical Marker erected in 1982 read “Commercial processing of domestic soybeans in U.S. began in 1915 at a plant which was located two miles north.”

The updated marker to be unveiled next month states, “In 1915 W.T. Culpepper launched the soybean oil industry in the U.S. at Elizabeth City Oil & Fertilizer Co., 1 mi. NE,” according to the state marker program’s website.

A representative with the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program told Coastal Review that the unveiling of the new marker to be located near where Church Street meets and Water Street will not be open to the public.

To see the harvesters and other exhibits in the Museum of the Albemarle, hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.