History of Morehead City, NC

Intra-Coastal Waterway. The Shepard Point Land Company was established to construct a deep water port to allow another access point for North Carolina timber products to relieve pressure at the port located in Wilmington, North Carolina. To make the port accessible to the interior of North Carolina, the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad line between Goldsboro and New Bern was completed on April 29, 1858.

North Carolina Governor John Motley Morehead, for whom the city of Morehead City, is named was also a principal member of the Shepard Point Land Company investment group. Fully operational rail service began in July 1858 connecting to the town to points west, north and south.

The town of Morehead City was laid out using a grid plan whereby city blocks were equally laid out with each block consisting of 16 equally divided lots. The city blocks stretched from 1st Street to 15th Street incorporating a system of alleys forming an "H" shape that enabled businesses and residential homes to be serviced from the alleys behind them.

Morehead City was officially incorporated by the North Carolina Senate in 1860 at which time the total number of households consisted of only 300 individual families.

The town continued to prosper until the American Civil War, when in 1862 it was occupied by Federal troops. The war disrupted commerce, and the economy of the port declined along with the town's population. It was not until the 1880s, with the construction of the Atlantic Hotel at the tip of the peninsula, and its promotion by the railroad as the "Summer Capital by the Sea", that the area began to experience a resurgence. The popularity of this particular hotel, with its train depot entrance, grand ballroom, piers, sailing and ferries to the beaches of Bogue Banks, helped to establish Morehead City as a summer destination.

It was also during the 1880s and 1890s that fishermen who had lived on the island of