File:Coast watch (1979) (20473016509).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_8 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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and mentioned that he wanted to sell his house. Uncle Lou went on to New Bern, where the market for salt mullet was good. Back home, he couldn't stop thinking of Smith Creek, which was close to New Bern and had a good harbor, lots of farmland and a river jumping with mullet. Uncle Lou didn't have any money. Instead, he convinced a nameplate from The Oriental, a federal transport ship that had sunk off Bodie Island during a storm in 1882. Interestingly, Oriental means "far east." Although it's not clear if Aunt Becky liked the name for this reason, she liked it enough that she wrote it down and suggested it when the town needed a name. In those early days, Oriental's lifeblood was the water, but it wasn't
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Overlooking the Neuse relative to move to Smith Creek with him and buy the house. Later, Uncle Lou convinced many of his friends to move there too. By 1886, the town had grown and it needed an official name for the post office. Smithville was rejected because the state already had one. Uncle Lou's wife, called Aunt Becky, had just been to a friend's house on Roanoke Island. There she saw the sailboats that filled the horizon. People plyed the water to catch and haul fish, ship potatoes and cabbage from Pamlico County farms, and mill and ship the area's abundant lumber. Norfolk and Southern steamships carried freight and people to and from New Bern and Norfolk. The John L. Roper Lumber Co. was one of the biggest businesses in town. In 1907, the company persuaded Norfolk and Southern to replace its steamships with a railroad. People came from the nearby communities of Pamlico, Florence, Whortonsville, Adams Creek and South River to trade. At one point, there were almost twice as many people living in Oriental as there are now. There were cotton gins, boardinghouses, an ice plant, an oyster cannery, a tile plant, a music store, a drugstore, doctors' offices, barber shops, livery stables and milli- neries. Oriental had the first electric light company in the county and the first motorized school bus in the state. However, the Roper mill burned in 1913, the Depres- sion hit, a series of hurricanes struck and refrigerated trucks replaced steamships and railroad cars. By the time the railroad ceased operation in the 1950s, most of the people had left. For many years, few new- comers moved to Oriental. "In the '20s and '30s," says Mason, "all the young people left to find jobs." "In this county," agrees Gwaltney, "there have been no jobs and no future for the children." Today, there are the seafood processing plants that opened in the 1950s, a few farms, some crabbers and fishermen, the Hardee's that opened up in nearby Bayboro and a Food Lion coming to the county soon. But most jobs in Oriental stem from its newest industry: sailing. 6 JULY/AUGUST 1995

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