Local History Archives

Apr 15, 2025
  • Rita Khazanie

Adaptation to a Disability: How a Greenville Resident Lived an Amazing Life Confined to a Wheelchair for 33 Years

The late Mike Hamer, a Greenville personality, has a web presence with several folk music songs, YouTube videos, compositions, and articles written about him by his friends. Mike Hamer was well known throughout Greenville...

Apr 10, 2025
  • Patrick Cash

The Measles Epidemic and Quarantine Procedures in North Carolina in the 1930s

During the 1930s, North Carolina, like much of the United States, grappled with recurring outbreaks of measles, a highly contagious viral disease. The lack of widespread vaccination and limited medical...

Sep 25, 2024
  • Patrick Cash

The Flood of the Century: 25th Anniversary of Hurricane Floyd Impacting Eastern North Carolina

Hurricane Floyd, which struck North Carolina in September 1999, is remembered as one of the most devastating storms in the state’s history. Making landfall near Cape Fear as a Category...

Apr 18, 2023
  • Fred Harrison

Staff Pick: Trial of the Rev. George Carawan, Baptist Preacher for the Murder of Clement H. Lassiter, Schoolmaster

Staff Person: Fred Harrison Print Collection: North Carolina Rare KF223.C366 C366 1854 Sensational 1853 Beaufort County Superior Court Trial Recalled in 1854 Book Immediately after being found guilty for the...

Jul 11, 2022
  • Fred Harrison

Discovering the Toothache Tree on the Outer Banks

Born in Williamston, NC, Rita Weaver Mizell and husband Dave resided in Elizabeth City before eventually moving to Southern Shores and operating the Nags Head Fishing Pier until their retirement....

Apr 07, 2022
  • Fred Harrison

Discovering Greenville’s Horticultural Past

It’s the season for gardening in Greenville and Pitt County and with the current proliferation of retail garden centers, you may have wondered at some point how folks living more...

Sep 24, 2021
  • Fred Harrison

“It’s Time for the Pitt County Fair”

The first Pitt County American Legion Agricultural Fair opened to the public on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 1920, at what is now Guy Smith Stadium on Memorial Drive in Greenville.  You...

Aug 05, 2021

ECU Libraries hosts COVID-19 Collection Drive

Beginning on August 9th, ECU Libraries is sponsoring a COVID19 Stories - Community Collection Drive to raise awareness about the collection and encourage submissions from the local community. We are...

Apr 12, 2021
  • Fred Harrison

Steinbeck’s, A Greenville Institution

Herbert Franklin Steinbeck Sr. came from Rockingham to Greenville, N.C. in 1950 as store manager for J.C. Penny Company prior to opening Steinbeck’s Men’s Shop in March of 1957. Among...

Sep 14, 2020
  • Alston Cobourn
  • Joe Barricella
  • Justin Borer
  • Larry Houston

“Greenville in Reelife” Features 1941 Footage of Greenville, NC

Thanks to a 2019 National Film Preservation Foundation grant, we were able to restore and digitize “Greenville in Reelife,” which is a silent film recorded by Reelife Motion Pictures in...