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Alliance

Incorporated in 1965, Alliance was named for the Farmers Alliance Movement. Several decades ago, it was the central site for most of the utilities in Pamlico County and as a result of a stockpile of funds from franchise taxes it received, the town does not have a property tax for its nearly 800 residents. The town provides residents with streetlights and maintains the roads in the town. Fire service is through the Triangle Voluntary Fire Department. 

The town has a unique form of electing town leaders. Five board seats are open and the highest vote-getter in each election assumes the job of mayor, a position currently held by Ed Riggs. 

A number of Pamlico County agencies are based in Alliance, including Senior Services, Social Services, the Cooperative Extension Service, Soil and Water Conservation and Farm Services. 

According to the Pamlico County Historical Association, what is now the town of Alliance was once (1880s) two school districts – Oak Grove and Logger Head, which later became the community of Camperville. The postal service has operated in the community since 1890 when Albin B. Campen was appointed the first postmaster. Years later when farmers united and formed the Farmers Alliance, the people from the two school districts came together and named the community Alliance. 

Though the town has a business district, farming has historically been the chief industry, and today, agricultural fields are still prevalent inside the town limits and on lands bordering Alliance.
 

Arapahoe
 

Arapahoe has a limited number of businesses, although it is the home of Belangia’s Super Market, one of just four full-service grocery stores within the 350 square miles of Pamlico County. The largest industry in Arapahoe and the area surrounding its borders is agriculture. Other businesses include Gary’s Restaurant, a florist and entrepreneurs in seafood management, home improvement and various service industries. 

The town, which has a population between 400 and 500 people, is expected to gain hundreds of new residents in the future with the building of several new developments. Chief among the new housing projects is Arlington Place on the south end of town. It could bring in as many as 1,200 new homes, along with boat docks. Other projects in or near the town include Shine Landing, with nearly 100 lots including some on the water; Shareheart Community, a development of small village condos along Dawson Creek and Cribbs Cove; and Dawson’s Landing, with about 100 housing lots. 

Arapahoe has long had a strong sense of community, and when consolidation closed the town’s elementary school in the mid-1990s, residents came together to build the Arapahoe Charter School. The school has consistently ranked among the top charter schools in the state since its inception in 1997. The school has a student population for kindergarten through middle school of less than 400, with small-size classes. The school is in the public school system, although under state charter guidelines it is self-governed on the local level. 

A large spring-to-fall enterprise in the Arapahoe area are four youth camps – YMCA–affiliated Camp Sea Gull for boys and Camp Seafarer for girls, along with Methodist Camp Don Lee and Christian Church Camp Caroline. 

Legend has it Arapahoe was first known as “Cross Roads.” There are versions of how it became Arapahoe. One is that it was named for Indians in the area, who traveled a trail south to the river that later became the footprint for N.C. 306. Another story is that the town was named for a racehorse owned by a prominent citizen. The town was settled early in the eighteenth century. A post office was established in 1886 and the town was incorporated in 1920. 

Because N.C. 306 and the old Indian trail follow a sand ridge, Arapahoe and Grantsboro are among the highest points in the 350 square miles of Pamlico County, at 39 feet above sea level.
 

Bayboro
 

Among the longtime businesses is Charlie’s Restaurant, located across from the high school. It has long been the breakfast, lunch and dinner gathering place for residents from around the county, as well as a popular mealtime gathering place for groups and organizations. Another is Forest Farm Supply, a key stopping place in an agriculturally oriented region. Because of its limitations to expand, land is precious, and most of the prime real estate is already taken — by non-taxable government entities.

The majority of Pamlico County’s local government is headquartered in Bayboro, anchored by Courthouse Square at the intersection of N.C. highways 55 and 304. That complex includes the administration office, courthouse, health department, water department and a relatively new $8 million law enforcement center. The local Bay River Metropolitan Sewer District is also headquartered in Bayboro, as is the county’s lone emergency response unit, Pamlico County Rescue Squad. 

Three of the four schools in the county system — high school, elementary and primary schools — are located within the town. Pamlico Community College has a satellite cosmetology center built adjacent to the high school. 

Most of the government buildings are located on the town’s most valuable real estate, along N.C. 55, which is undergoing a major widening. Still, business and town leaders, such as Mayor Paige Ackiss and longtime commissioner and entrepreneur Joe Himbry, believe the town has potential to attract more than just drive-through traffic to waterfront destinations such as Oriental. The town has a revitalization plan to complement the N.C. 55 widening, along with hopes to enhance a town-owned park on the Bay River to attract water enthusiasts for canoe and kayak activities. 

The town of more than 700 residents, named for the Bay River, was settled in the 1800s, and incorporated in 1881.
 

Grantsboro

According to the Pamlico County Historical Association, Grantsboro was named for William Grant, a New York bachelor who came to the area a peddler with his “pack upon his back.” He built two store buildings and then the community of Grantsboro was on its way toward commercial development. 

Today, no town in the county is expected to reap more commercial growth than Grantsboro from the $47 million N.C. 55 widening project (two to five lanes), which will be completed in the summer of 2009. The town already is home to two of the four full-service supermarkets in the large rural county — Food Lion and Piggly Wiggly. It has a fast-food restaurant, a convenience store and a variety of discount and food shops located within the shopping center anchored by the Food Lion. 

A growing government and cultural complex greets visitors entering the county from the New Bern area. It includes the town post office, Grantsboro’s new town hall and the developing Pamlico County Heritage and Visitors Center. The museum project has been the successful work of the Pamlico County Historical Association, which has raised more than $800,000 through donations, grants and fund-raisers to build a 6,000-square foot museum to showcase the county’s history of forestry, farming and fishing. In addition to the main structure, plans call for development of a Heritage Village, complete with a 1900s farmhouse and school house, along with a fish house and a fishing trawler. 

The town was incorporated in 1998, in part as a response to rumored annexation plans by the adjacent town of Alliance. The town has had but one mayor in its short history, Clifton Stowe, who presides over a five-person town board for the population of nearly 800 people.