Our State magazine loads up on Carteret County, (N.C.) stories

Hooray for Our State magazine. Its June 2026 edition, labeled as the “Annual Coastal Issue,” is a chubby 232 pages. The lead article focuses on “Old Salts: Stories from the Working Coast of North Carolina.”

 On the cover is a color photograph that features the elder “Oysterman,” Jimmy Morris, a fifth-generation commercial fisherman from the Sea Level community in the Down East section of Carteret County.

Our State writers and photographers also made stops in the villages of Atlantic, Cedar Island, Harkers Island and Harlowe, went over to Cape Lookout National Seashore and visited locations in Beaufort, Morehead City and Pine Knoll Shores.

It all adds up to “quite a spread” about things for visitors to do, see and experience in Carteret County and along the Crystal Coast – about 31 pages of editorial narrative and 35 images. The impact on local tourism opportunities is priceless and couldn’t have come at a better time.

Ryan Stancil of New Bern wrote the collection of articles about the “Old Salts,” with photography by Baxter Miller. 

Five of their subjects represent Carteret County “trades.”

(Most photos are from the Our State website.)

Sea Level’s Jimmy Morris, along with his son, James Morris Jr., and grandson, Charlie Morris, are deemed “The Oystermen.” They are now working full-time as oyster farmers, operating Morris Family Shellfish, with leases in several bodies of water Down East.

 

“We like salty oysters, but we also like plump oysters,” James says. “Where we grow oysters, we have to balance salinity and meat quality.” He told Stancil that Owens Bay is his “favorite place to come to work.”

 

Brent Gaskill of Harkers Island is the selection as “The Captain.” He came from a commercial fishing family but has transitioned to become a highly successful recreational fishing pilot and owner of the vessel Builder’s Choice. He said his background gives him a different understanding “of how to read the water, how the conditions work and that plays a big role in it.”

 

Heidi Harris Roberts of Atlantic is featured as “The Netmaker.” She’s now responsible for keeping the family business, Harris Net Shop, afloat. It’s not been easy, as the demand for fishing nets has decreased due to the downturn in the commercial fishing industry. Still, she’s there, to serve her remaining loyal customers, producing her father Roger Harris’ famous patterns.

Stancil wrote that Heidi’s “perseverance and dedication to the craft have kept the shop alive, as she weaves together her cultural heritage and family legacy, one knot at a time.”

Thomas and Monica Smith, hold the distinction as being “The Shrimpers.” As owners of Miss Gina’s Fresh Shrimp retail store, located north of Beaufort on U.S. Route 70 East, the Smiths are dialed into the “farm-to-table” movement to catch and sell shrimp and other seafood products. The business is named after Thomas’ mother, Gina Smith.

 

Thomas and Monica own and operate three shrimp trawlers, with Thomas’ father, Allen Smith, serving as one of the captains.

 

According to Thomas, a shrimper’s life means “we adapt, pray a little bit, talk about it, try to give it back, and then it blossoms some more. This is our calling, and now we’ve just got to ride the ship.”

To complete the series on “Old Salts,” Stancil and Baxter found “The Historian.” He is Dr. David Cecelski, an exceptional storyteller who hails from Harlowe, technically outside the “boundaries” of Down East, but it's a community that shares many of the same rural beliefs and customs.

Dr. Cecelski told Stancil: “I believe with all my heart that there are some things worth fighting for, and our coast is one of them.”

 There are more stories to share.

Let’s dig up treasures for a renewed U.S. 70 branding effort

Someone needs to revitalize U.S. Route 70’s identity as “America’s Treasure Trail,” an east-west highway connecting seven states on a corridor from North Carolina to Arizona.

 

Established in 1926 as a federal highway, U.S. 70 is observing a centennial celebration of sorts in 2026, attracting the attention of nostalgic road trippers.

North Carolina could leverage its colorful connectivity with images of pirates and their gleaming treasure chests overflowing with gold, silver, diamonds and other huge, sparkling gemstones. Arrghh!

Let it be known to all…far and wide…the only part of the entire Route 70 that is designated as a National Scenic Byway is the section of the highway that runs through Down East Carteret County.

 

Follow the signs to the “Outer Banks National Scenic Byway” that are posted along the roadside of Route 70 East just a little way beyond East Carteret High School north of Beaufort.

 

The highway rolls on Down East through the small communities of Bettie, Otway, Smyrna, Williston, Davis, Stacy and Sea Level. 

On the map, Route 70 officially terminates in Atlantic at the intersection with School Drive.

 

The pavement continues as Seashore Drive for several blocks and dead ends at the marina on Little Port Brook.

 

Atlantic is about the lowest point along the entire Route 70. The elevation here ranges from 0 to about 16 feet. Approximately 540 people presently reside in Atlantic.

During the early 1700s, these offshore waters were the playground of Blackbeard, the fearsome and notorious pirate. Surely, there are some of his treasures buried around here somewhere.

 

So, it makes perfect sense to rely heavily on pirates to help reinvigorate North Carolina’s section of “America’s Treasure Trail” – the brand for U.S. Route 70 that was selected in 1951…but seems to have unfortunately “just faded away” over time.

Globe, Ariz. – the western terminus of Route 70 – was once a wild and wooly western frontier town with gunslingers, outlaws, saloons, prospectors, cowboys and cattle rustlers. A local landmark is Six Shooter Canyon.

 

Journalist Alicia Durette puts Globe in the top 11 “Old Western Towns in Arizona.” 

“Arizona used to be the ultimate example of the Wild Wild West, where lawlessness reigned,” she said.

This is rich. Pairing North Carolina’s pirates with characters from Arizona’s Wild West seems like a “natural attraction” to truly restore the aura of U.S. 70 as “America’s Treasure Trail.”

It gets even better when we add to the mix the Native American heritage, as represented by the Mescalero Apache Tribe. 

Route 70 passes through the Mescalero Apache Reservation within Lincoln County, N.M., along the Apache Summit, at an elevation of approximately 7,600 feet within the Sierra Blanca Mountains. The highest peak in the range is 11,980 feet above sea level.

Another noteworthy feature is that between Alamagorda and Las Cruces, N.M., Route 70 crosses a section of the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range. (It is the nation’s largest military installation, encompassing almost 3,200 square miles stretching across six counties.)

 

Motorists traveling on Route 70 there can expect temporary roadblocks and closures (typically between one to two hours in length) during active missile testing and military operations.

 

The largest city served by Route 70 is Nashville, Tenn., with a population of about 726,590.

 

Surely, we could find a songwriter there to compose a country music ballad about “Scenic 70/America’s Treasure Trail.”

 

Or…we might just leave it up to Jason Nutt, a singer/songwriter from Floydada, Texas, another community located on Route 70. 

In fact, his band is named Jason Nutt & Highway 70. Ever heard of the group?

 

Yet, there’s plenty of musical talent right here in Carteret County – folks who could compose the perfect melody.

“Seventy” is a tough rhyming word for a lyricist. “Heavenly” comes close. So does “pleasantry.”

Route 70 endures ‘truncation’ of western end point

Originally, U.S. Route 70 went all the way to the West Coast in Los Angeles, Calif., but the highway was truncated in 1963 at Blythe, Calif., about 225 miles east of Los Angeles. Blythe sits on the Colorado River bordering Arizona.

The recommendation to shorten Route 70 came from the California Division of Highways, as it planned to remove older U.S. highway designations in favor of the new Interstate Highway System (specifically I-10). The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) gave its approval.

 

Because U.S. 70 shared its entire California alignment with other routes (primarily paired with U.S. 60) and never had a stretch of road to itself in the state, “it was the first redundant designation to be eliminated.”

Blythe offers a multitude of Colorado River recreational opportunities.

Then in 1969, Route 70 was truncated once again, as another 252 miles between Blythe and Globe, Ariz. (east of Phoenix) were lopped off.

This stretch of Route 70 had been entirely co-signed with Route 60, so the Arizona Department of Transportation and AASHO deemed the “overlapping concurrency unnecessary,” rolling back the western terminus of Route 70 to Globe. 

Hence, Globe is now the official “end of the road” for Route 70.

 

With an average elevation of about 3,510 feet, Globe is in the foothills of the Pinal Mountains. The highest peak in the range measures about 7,848 feet.

Globe took its name from a prospector who found a globe-shaped nugget of pure silver nearby.

The local chamber of commerce says: “Globe was a Wild West frontier town with gunfights, stagecoach robberies, saloons and all the rest.” Six Shooter Canyon was a dangerous place to travel.

Mining interests turned from silver to copper ore, as the region around Globe holds some of the largest copper reserves in the entire United States. 

Presently, about 7,175 people reside in Globe.

Today, Route 70 through Arizona and New Mexico is branded as “The Old West Highway.” It’s an effort to highlight the road’s rich frontier heritage associated with the American Southwest.

 

One important chapter of that story relates to Route 70’s “12 ghost miles.”

Writing for the Gila Herald, an online news source in Safford, Ariz., local historian Robert VanBuhler playfully revealed that between Bylas and Safford (near the small community of Fort Thomas) the mileposts “adjust” from 314 to 326 as you head eastbound on Route 70 and decrease from 326 to 314 for westbound motorists.

 

VanBuhler likened the drive-by experience to “being in the twilight zone.” Did someone forget to order 315 to 325, or were they misplaced? Did the road crew leave them out as a prank?

 

He checked with the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) for an explanation and was told that “the mystery gap” is called an “equation” and not a mistake.

“The milepost markers needed to correct the mileage to the New Mexico border,” VanBuhler wrote.

 

ADOT’s communications officer explained that U.S. 70 initially followed the old Gila River Trail, which was used by wagons and railroads in the 1800s.

The location of the highway was later affected by construction of Coolidge Dam at the Gila River in 1930 to create San Carlos Lake on the San Carlos Apache Reservation.

 

“After Coolidge Dam, the route of the highway was adjusted to lead to the new man-made lake,” the ADOT spokesperson said. (Old postcards show vehicles on the roadway passing over the top of the dam.)

 

In 1956, U.S. 70 was readjusted back to the original – and 12 miles shorter – route. ADOT figured the best solution was to remove 12 mileposts in a remote section of the highway, “rather than go to the expense of changing all the mile markers” going east and west.