State

Here’s n view of some of ihe boats and clocks at Vandeincrc with the packing house buildings in the background. Around two dozen boats call this their home port. VANDEMERE The Se.-il'ootl Town nas •i I most clou и anti out until 191.». hIiimi this Pamlico fishing com- miinilv tleeitletl to be something. By BILLY С A К 211 IC’IIA EL III CHANCES arc you’ve never heard of either the town or the slogan, but there’s a place in North Carolina called Vande- mere that the citizens have tagged The Seafood Town of the State. And believe it or not. it possibly is. Where’s Vandemere? Well, you’ll find it in Pamlico County some 25 miles out past New' Bern and sitting right on the edge of Pamlico Sound. Vandemere wouldn't be the site of any Garden Club outings in the near future, nor is a casual visitor initially im¬ pressed by this little town where the highway runs out just short of the sound. But if you find the right man to tell you the Vandemere story, one soon finds there’s a lot more to this fishing village than first meets the eye. The man to see is Vande- mere’s mayor. W. B. Phelps, who has held that office since 1945. And since 1945. Vandemere has done a lot of things. It seems that the depression of the 1930's put the town on its knees and the citizens just never bothered to place it back on its feet again. Town government was allowed to collapse. No taxes were collected, and even the street lights that had been installed were reclaimed by the finance company for non-payment. It was really a sad fate for Van¬ demere. for back in 1895 when the town was first incorporated, the founding fathers had quite big ideas for the future of the village. Streets were laid out in all direc¬ tions. named for the different states of the nation, and the houses were all numbered. In fact. Vandemere was the first town in Pamlico County, and at one time was the county seat, which has since been moved to Bayboro. But after its fast start, Vandemere slowed to a quieter pace of progress. It was still grow¬ ing. however, as the fishing in¬ dustry in North Carolina grew un¬ til the depression hit and Vande¬ mere all but went under. But after the recent war a change suddenly came over the citizens of the town. With the elec¬ tion of Mayor Phelps the popula¬ tion of about 300 has boomed over the 400 figure, and folks have got a lot of big ideas about making Vandemere a first class town again. And the success of the venture thus far comes from the fact that the citizens went ahead and put their ideas into motion. With the end of the war. the fishing industry which had suf¬ fered heavily during the period of hostilities, came back strongly. The market was good and the fish were running well. The changing tastes of the seafood consumers also had a great deal to do with the in¬ creased market, for Mayor Phelps recalls the day when shrimp weren’t fished for at all and those caught while making other catches were thrown or given away. People didn’t eat them. Today, shrimp is among the leaders in seafood demanded by the markets. During fishing seasons the docks at Vandemere these days are al¬ ways crowded. There are numer¬ ous boats, large and small, that call the town their home port, and added to these arc large numbers of boats from other ports that call at Vandemere and make head¬ quarters there during certain seasons. Vandemere's two large packing concerns — the Pamlico Packing Company and the Vandemere Shrimp Company — are doing a rushing business. Both companies, besides buying from the indepen¬ dent fishermen around the town, have large Meets of their own which !o out in quest of a variety of sea- ood products. The Pamlico organ¬ ization has two large ocean-going trawlers together with six smaller boats, while the Vandemere Com¬ pany also can boast of two large vessels and three of the small variety. The independent boats at Vandemere number about eight. The packing operations of the two companies are quite intense for the size of the town, with Pamlico even extending into the packing of crab meat. Oddly enough, there is little or no com¬ petition between the local con¬ cerns or. for that matter, among the companies up and down the sound. Long ago the different busi¬ ness men found that too much cut¬ throat competition led to price wars in which everyone profited but the packers themselves. There were plenty of fish and markets for everyone, and a general market price seemed to be the answer. Besides shrimp, the majority of the fish caught by boats working from Vandemere fall under the classifications of croakers, trout, and butterfish. There is also a good deal of oyster fishing done by the town’s fishermen in the areas of the Pamlico, Ncusc and Bay rivers. Though most of the fishing is done TOWNS OF N. C. This is the tenth in a series of articles dealing with towns of the state that are off the beaten path so far as through traffic is concerned. The eleventh, which will appear in an early issue, will be about Stanley in Gaston County. THE STATE. JULY 1. 1950