The Outer Banks History Center 







Books, 

 periodicals, 

 newspapers, 

 documents, 

 reports, calendars, 

 maps, paintings, 

 engravings, 

 audiotapes, 

 microfiche, place 

 mats, bumper 

 stickers, postcards 

 and campaign 

 literature all have 

 a place in the 

 center's growing 

 collection, Dough says. 



"If it's flat, we got it," says the 

 dry-witted curator. 



About the only thing the Outer 

 Banks History Center doesn't collect 

 is artifacts, Dough says. There's an 

 unwritten agreement that the center 

 will not accept these historical tokens 

 so that they can be concentrated in 

 museums — N.C. Museum of History, 

 N.C. Maritime Museum, Museum 

 of the Albemarle and Cape Fear 

 Museum. 



Artifacts aside, patrons willing to 

 spend time at the center can get a 

 heapin' helpin' of history. They can 

 read through the writings of North 

 Carolina's first historians — Thomas 

 Harriot, John Lawson and John White; 

 listen to a Carteret County native 

 weave a story of days gone by; or flip 

 through Brown's photographs for a 

 snapshot history of early development 

 and tourism along the Outer Banks. 



But Dough cautions that you 

 shouldn't let the name Outer Banks 

 History Center fool you. The center's 

 focus goes far beyond the ribbons of 



sand that elbow into the Atlantic 

 along the Tar Heel coast. 



Historically speaking, the 

 center's collection spans the state 

 from the Blue Ridge Mountains to 

 the Atlantic Ocean, with a special 

 emphasis on coastal events of days 

 past. But visitors can also feed their 

 hunger for history of Tidewater 

 Virginia, the English Tudor and 

 Stuart periods, and U.S. naval and 

 maritime history. 



History isn't the center's only 

 bent. Dough has also amassed a 

 collection of marine science informa- 

 tion. In fact, many N.C. Sea Grant 

 publishings, from Coastwatch to 

 scientific reports and proceedings, are 

 shelved in this coastal depository. 



And among the hordes of nonfic- 

 tion, a few jewels of fiction and 

 poetry glitter in the center's collec- 

 tion. Although novels are fictitious, 

 their settings or story lines often 

 reveal valuable historical and cultural 

 information. 



"I refer people to the center all 

 the time for information about fish, 



boats or generali- 

 ties about the 

 coast," says Sea 

 Grant specialist 

 Rich Novak. "And 

 always, they come 

 back satisfied 

 customers." 



The history 

 center's gallery 

 and reading room 

 attract a variety of 

 patrons. Some 

 come to see the 

 visual offerings — 

 photographs, paintings and drawings — 

 that rotate through the center's 1,000- 

 square-foot gallery. But most are inter- 

 ested in the library's reading material, 

 which must be viewed on the premises. 

 The center is not a lending library. 



"We get a lot of journalists doing 

 research; we see novelists and screen- 

 writers and lots of folks doing genea- 

 logical searches — not all of whom are 

 trying to prove they're related to Vir- 

 ginia Dare," Dough says with a laugh. 



A researcher visited from the Uni- 

 versity of Tokyo, and written queries 

 have come from as far as Denmark's 

 Faeroe Islands. As for famous visitors, 

 historical novelist David Payne, author 

 of Early from the Dance, has delved 

 into the center's collection, as have 

 writers Rod Farb, Tom Crouch and 

 Gary Gentile. 



The staffs of television's "Unsolved 

 Mysteries" and Time-Life Books have 

 conducted research there. Actor Andy 

 Griffith has been videotaped at the 

 center twice — for ABC's "20/20" and 

 for public television's "N.C. People." 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 1 7 



