Published in · 4 min read · Feb 19, 2023
--
Elizabethtown, North Carolina.
If you ask most North Carolina natives if they know where Elizabethtown, North Carolina is, they’ll happily exclamation one of two things — that it’s the home place of Melvin’s Hamburgers or it’s the town most adjacent to White Lake. The worrisome folks will retort, “you mean, Elizabeth City, right?” Personally, I advise you to steer clear of those who dare ask such a preposterous question.
Before I can truly begin to explain this small North Carolina town any further, I must divulge, for transparency’s sake that I am incredibly biased. Elizabethtown (E-town if you’re a local), is the place of my birth and early raising. It’s a place, that even today, I still refer to as, home. I spent nearly every day of my youth exploring the vast woods behind my grandparent’s house. On warmer days, I was in the lake. In the late 80s and early 90s, we swam carelessly for hours without even a hint of sunscreen. We swam until our extremities pruned, our legs cramped, and not even the thunder from an impending storm couldn’t coax us to evacuate. Looking back, the clear waters of White Lake were magical — wonderful, even. Even if you did end up with some mysterious green moss in your bathing suit.
What most people don’t know, is that Bladen County, NC as a whole has a secret. Contained inside this 887 square feet county is the largest collection of Carolina Bays, the largest density of bays in the world. It is of important note, that not all Carolina Bays contain water — a fact that was not discovered until the invention of aviation. Elizabethtown, Bladen’s county seat is not only the host of Jones Lake State Park and White Lake, the Cape Fear River winds its way through the town. As the river serpentines its way down to the coast, the river’s banks provide an excellent place to sink in a line or pull in a boat. In the nearby communities, some less than ten miles from Elizabethtown, you can explore Singletary Lake State Park and Bay Tree lake. Near the Cumberland county border, tucked away in remote North Carolina Wildlife game lands are Horseshoe Lake, Little Singletary, and Suggs Mill Pond. Bladen County is one of the state’s oldest counties and this year, Elizabethtown will celebrate its 250th anniversary with events and festivals all year long. For more information, visit https://elizabethtownwhitelake.com/#
Needless to say, the anomaly of the Carolina Bays has long piqued my curiosity. These bizarre landforms possess unique histories, some told only through oral traditions or snippets of long-buried news articles. My fond childhood memories only further fueled my interest in the bays. In 2021, I began diligently researching the history of Jones Lake State Park, which was opened in 1939 as the first African American North Carolina State Park during segregation. In the spring of 2022, I submitted my research and outline to Arcadia Publishing Company and in October of 2022, I officially signed a contract with the publishing company. The tentatively titled book, “Bladen County’s Carolina Bays, a History & Guide”, will feature the area’s bay lakes, wetlands, ponds, and dried bays. Also, included in the book is a 32-page color insert of photographic works, many taken while aboard my kayak. The bay lakes covered will be White Lake, Jones Lake State Park, Singletary Lake, Lake Waccamaw, and Horseshoe Lake.
Mountains-to-Sea Trail
On Friday, February 17th The Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the location of their newest trail bridge. Despite mother nature’s best attempts, the rain didn’t damper the unveiling of this new bridge, which expands the trail a mile across Turnbull Creek. located across the street from Jones Lake State Park, crossing Highway 242 is the newest extension of the project. In North Carolina, the MST covers nearly 1200 square miles, stretching from the Outer Banks to the Great Smoky Mountains.
To find out more information about The Mountains-to-Sea-Trail, please visit, www.mountainstosea.org
Governor Roy Cooper
Article and images by: Stephanie Barnhill Neal www.stephaniebarnhillneal.com
About the author
Stephanie Barnhill Neal is an award-winning photographer, writer, and artist. In 2022, Stephanie was the recipient of the Wake County Art Grant for her upcoming 2023 mixed-media installation, “Through the Cracks”. Stephanie is best known as the executive producer and voice behind the North Carolina-based podcast, “What in Tarnation, a Southern Cure for Quandary”. Her debut book, with Arcadia Publishing Company, “Bladen County’s Carolina Bays, a History & Guide” is set to be released in the spring of 2024.
