Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like the problems of today are unique to our time and place, but this latest batch of the Carteret County News-Times (1960-1963) demonstrates that people have been working through similar problems for at least 50 years. One issue, from March 16, 1962, somehow touches on big storms flooding the area (and the difficulty of insuring coastal property), U.S. House elections, and redistricting—almost as if it were printed in 2022.

Luckily, no one died in the nor’easter that hit Morehead City and the rest of the coast in March 1962, but the storm did cause quite a bit of damage. A paper from the preceding week (March 2, 1962) pictures flooding along some of the commercial streets and describes buildings that were not up to code to withstand the storm. One commissioner reported that an insurance firm in New York abstained from insuring the area because of the building code problems. A week later, a headline reads (perhaps unsurprisingly): “Red Cross Says Best Way to Help Dare Is Give to Local Red Cross.”

Another front page story describes a bid for the 3rd Congressional District by Morehead City resident S.A. Chalk Jr. Chalk Jr. ran against incumbent David Henderson in the Democratic primary (though in a much different Democratic party than we think of today). He accused Henderson of voting for “policies that are bound to cause even further trouble,” saying, “He claims he’s conservative, but his voting records do not bear this out.” Chalk Jr. still lost the primary, apparently, as Henderson went on to represent the district until 1977.

Aside from the familiar arguments of House elections, the article also mentions that Harnett County was added to the district in 1960. And while the headlines haven’t changed much over the last 50 years, the list of counties included in the 3rd District certainly has. In 1962, the district included 10 counties: Carteret, Craven, Duplin, Harnett, Jones, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender, Sampson, and Wayne. In 2023, the district will expand and morph to contain parts of 15 counties: Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Duplin, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Onslow, Pamlico, Pitt (partly), Sampson, and Wayne (partly). For visual thinkers, an interactive map of NC’s congressional districts can be found here.

You can see the full batch of the Carteret County News-Times here and explore all of our digital newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. You can also explore more materials from the Carteret County Public Libraries on their partner page and their website.

A January 1958 article showing and detailing events in a 1957 retrospective

Nearly a dozen years and over 14,000 pages of the Carteret County News-Times have been newly added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Carteret County Public Libraries. While previously covering from May 1948 to March 1949, DigitalNC now covers from May 1948 to January 1960. Based out of Morehead City, this newspaper covers Carteret County and joins the Pine Knoll Shores, another newspaper that services Carteret County.

An article in the Carteret County News-Times, dated January 13, 1950

The News-Times is a weekly and semi-weekly newspaper that offers mostly local headlines, although some are of national importance. Many are naturally about the North Carolina coast and maritime news, like the article to the right. In early 1950, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution released glass bottles into the ocean off the coast, in order to test the ocean’s drift due to winds or currents. The bottles included notes that had a return address to the institute on them, and if the notes were returned, the sender received 50 cents back for their help.

Having this massive increase in pages from the News-Times helps gain knowledge and increase representation of coastal North Carolina cities in our collection. To browse through other materials from the Carteret County Public Libraries, take a look at their partner page, or visit their website.

We’ve just added newspaper issues from 37 titles, dating from 1819-1968, with the majority dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From a variety of cities, most of these additions are only 1-5 issues per title. Thanks to the State Archives of North Carolina and its preservation of newspapers, we’re pleased to include these fill-in issues. The State Archives provided them to us as part of their newspaper microfilming workflow.

Below is a list of titles, their cities of publication, and the years from which the issues date.

• Southern Citizen, Asheboro – 1873
• The Asheboro Courier, Asheboro – 1888
• Bayboro Sentinel, Bayboro – 1902
• Beaufort Halcyon, Beaufort – 1855
• The Carteret County Telephone, Beaufort – 1882, 1884-1885
• The Weekly Record, Beaufort – 1886
• The Tobacco Plant (Durham), Durham – 1872, 1882-1883
• The Durham Daily Globe (later the Herald-Sun), Durham – 1891
• The Edenton Transcript, Edenton – 1908-1909
• The Albemarle Observer, Edenton – 1911
• The Edenton News, Edenton – 1922
• The North Carolinian, Fayetteville – 1856-1857
• Western Reporter, Franklin – 1880
• Our Farms, Franklinton – 1896
• Weekly Message (later The Olive Branch), Greensborough – 1855
• The Gold Leaf, Henderson – 1885
• The Herald of Truth, Hendersonville – 1855
• The High Point Enterprise, High Point – 1968
• The Lincoln Courier, Lincolnton – 1867
• The Visitor (paper of the Littleton Female College), Littleton – 1902
• The Littleton Dispatch, Littleton – 1928
• The Franklin Times , Louisburg – 1879
• The Robesonian, Lumberton – 1872, 1876-1877, 1880-1881
• Milton Intelligencer, Milton – 1819
• The Milton Chronicle, Milton – 1860, 1883
• The Monroe Enquirer, Monroe – 1881
• The Norlina Headlight, Norlina – 1919
• The Granville Free Lance, Oxford – 1880
• The Oxford Torchlight, Oxford – 1881
• Spirit of the Age Raleigh – 1855
• The Spy, Raleigh – 1875
• North Carolina Spectator and Western Advertiser, Rutherfordton – 1834
• The Rutherford Banner, Rutherfordton – 1888
• The Democrat, Rutherfordton – 1895
• The Sun, Rutherfordton – 1918-1919
• North Carolina Argus, Wadesboro – 1855

The State Archives has an exhibit of Early North Carolina Newspapers here. Their microfilming efforts are behind almost all of the digitized microfilmed papers available through DigitalNC. Search or browse all of our newspapers on the newspaper landing page.

This week we have another 41 titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch we have a lot of new papers from Durham and Beaufort, as well as our first additions from Mocksville, Pine Forest, and Kenansville!

Last month we added our first copies of The Nation from Buffalo Springs. The Nation was a handwritten paper published by John McLean Harrington, a Harnett County man who would painstakingly copy each of his papers by hand for his roughly 100 subscribers. This week we have five more of Harrington’s handwritten papers: The Young American from Buffalo Springs, The Weekly Eagle from Pine Forest, and Harrington, N.C.’s The Times, The Weekly News, and The Semi-Weekly News.

Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.

This week’s additions include:

• The Clinton Independent (Clinton, N.C.) – 1856-1858
• Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• The Nation (Buffalo Springs, N.C.) – 1858
• The Young American (Buffalo Springs, N.C.) – 1858
• The Weekly Eagle (Pine Forest, N.C.) – 1860
• The Eagle (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1868-1873
• The Semi-Weekly News (Harrington, N.C.) – 1860
• The Weekly News (Harrington, N.C.) – 1860-1864
• The Times (Harrington, N.C.) – 1867-1869
• Eastern Carolina News (Kenansville, N.C.) – 1908-1911
• The Chronicle (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1916-1917
• The Enterprise (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1917-1918
• The Albemarle Enterprise (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1919
• The News (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1919
• Stanly County Herald (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1919
• The Stanly News-Herald (Albemarle, N.C.) – 1919
• The Weekly Record (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1887-1888
• The Beaufort Eagle (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1876
• The Herald (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1893
• Beaufort Journal (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1857-1858
• Carteret County Telephone (Beaufort, N.C.) – 1881-1885
• The Clayton Bud (Clayton, N.C.) – 1883-1886
• The Weekly Bud (Smithfield, N.C.) – 1886-1887
• Creedmoor Times-News (Creedmoor, N.C.) – 1915-1919
• Durham Daily Dispatch (Durham, N.C.) – 1880
• The Durham Herald (Durham, N.C.) – 1876
• The Durham County Republican (Durham, N.C.) – 1884
• The Truth (Durham, N.C.) – 1884
• Daily Record (Durham, N.C.) – 1898
• The Daily Reporter (Durham, N.C.) – 1885
• The Durham Weekly Globe (Durham, N.C.) – 1889-1892
• Durham Globe (Durham, N.C.) – 1895-1896
• Saturday Night (Durham, N.C.) – 1893
• The Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1826-1827
• The Carolina Beacon (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1836-1837
• Southern Telescope (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1837
• The Carolina Patriot (Greensboro, N.C.) – 1837-1839
• The Davie Times (Mocksville, N.C.) – 1887-1903
• The Davie Record (Mocksville, N.C.) – 1899-1922
• Chatham Observer (Pittsboro, N.C.) – 1901-1904
• Chatham Citizen (Pittsboro, N.C.) – 1897-1899
• The Day (Oxford, N.C.) – 1890-1892
• The Concord Times (Concord, N.C.) – 1895-1897
• The Evening Tribune (Concord, N.C.) – 1904-1910
• Concord Daily Tribune (Concord, N.C.) – 1910-1921

If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.

The Shoreline, February 2019.

Thanks to our partners at The History Committee of the Town of Pine Knoll Shores, we now have a handful of new issues of The Shoreline, covering all of 2019 and a few months of 2018. DigitalNC now has a near complete collection The Shoreline through the years, from 1973 to 2019, with the exception of 2003.

The Shoreline is the local newspaper for Pine Knoll Shores, N.C., located on the Bogue Banks barrier island in Carteret County. As the inaugural 1973 newsletter declared, this newspaper is for “giving residents and non-residents a change to fill us all in on what’s happening to them, how they feel about life down here, and just generally brining the whole group together…”. The Shoreline continues that spirit today, covering Pine Knoll Shores through articles focused on local events and organizations, like public library updates and Pine Knoll Shores Women’s Club news.

While Pine Knoll Shores may be small in population, reaching 1,339 in the 2010 census, they have a lively community. This is evidenced through the community projects laid out in The Shoreline; from watching over the seasonal sea turtle nests to planting trees after a devastating hurricane season, Pine Knoll Shores residents are active around town.

Mid Season Sea Turtle Update, August 2019.

To view the entire collection of newspapers from Pine Knoll Shores, click here. You can also find more digitized content from Pine Knoll Shores by visiting the History Committee’s contributor page. To learn more about Pine Knoll Shores, visit the town website here.

More than 40 years and 5000 pages of newspapers from Pine Knoll Shores, NC have been added to DigitalNC.

Pine Knoll Shores is close-knit population of nearly 1,500 members. It is located in southwestern Carteret County, along Bogue Banks. However, this beach town is anything but sleepy. Documented through the 40 years of newspapers, the Pine Knolls Shores community is bustling, taking an active role in the lives of its members. Clubs, volunteerism, safety, and events fill the pages of the Shoreline and represent the personality of the small coastal town.

With a population of roughly 650 in the early 1980’s, the town has grown into a vibrant community. Over the decades, it is interesting to see the technological and graphic changes that occurred across each issue, with each decade becoming more complex. This is a useful resources for those interested in genealogical research or information about small community planning. Pine Knoll Shores has created an excellent record of how a small town can grow together over several decades.

You can view the entire collection of newspapers from Pine Knoll Shores here. You can also learn more about the town of Pine Knoll Shores and the History Committee by visiting their contributor page.

From left to right, 1st Row: Pine Knoll Shore Line, 1975, The Shore Line, 1985, The Shoreline, 1995
From left to right, 2nd Row: The Shoreline, 2005. The Shoreline, 2015

This front page of the July 20, 1939 issue of The Beaufort News announces the first annual Coastal Festival.

Thanks to nominations from the Carteret County Public Libraries, we’ve extended our community newspaper coverage in southeast North Carolina and the Inner Banks with two new titles:

• The Beaufort News [Beaufort, February 5, 1925-December 28, 1944]
• Carteret County News-Times [Morehead City, May 18, 1948-March 29, 1949]

These two titles feature news that’s particular to coastal communities. There is special emphasis on weather and its impact on travel, events, and maritime businesses. However you’ll also find news typical to community papers regardless of location: the impact of state government on local life, personal and business news, school events, and advertisements. Towns covered include not only Morehead City and Beaufort, but also much smaller communities like Newport, Wire Grass, Merrimon, Otway, Harlowe, Core Creek, North River, Davis, Harkers Island, Lenoxville, Lola, Russell’s Creek, Lenoxville, and more. We’ve especially enjoyed news items and advertisements related to Ocracoke Island, Hatteras, and other remote areas of the Outer Banks.

These papers really increase the representation of eastern North Carolina on DigitalNC. To view more papers from points east (or elsewhere), head over to our Newspapers collection page.