05/26/2026
UPDATE 2 (May 31, 2026): No more email requests, please! We've arranged a 2nd printing run. All those who have emailed have been logged, and will be getting an email follow up once we have the prints on hand to arrange payment and pickup/shipping, estimated ~2 weeks. Remaining prints will then be available to all directly from the OPS Museum or ordered online, and at that time, prices will need to be slightly adjusted higher. Yes, all those on wait list now closed will get at the initial cost. Thanks to all for the amazing interest.
UPDATE: Proof of concept proved..... Yes we sold out within the hour! So.... We are creating a wait list, and thus crafting our next order of professional printing and cutting. Please continue to write an email to express interest in the large and/or small print. And I'll be in touch with all here soon with updates. If you have sent an email, you are already on the list. Thank you all for showing how much you care about Ocracoke 's Preservation......
Dear Folks, we have a special treat for Ocracoke connoisseurs. For the first time in many moons, we can offer for sale the iconic print of the panoramic view from the Ocracoke lighthouse in 1915. This stunning “captured-in-time” image used to adorn the wall of many an O’cocker home back in the day.
Highly sought after, this limited edition run has been made possible by the unrelenting detective work of Ann Ehringhaus. Long since given to her by Mike Riddick, thought lost to Hurricane Dorian, this 8"x10" onto which the original panoramic photo had been transfered, has now been transformed to a high resolution photographic art paper print by a professional printer in the Chapel Hill area.
We are selling exclusively a limited run of photographic prints, ready for your personal mounting/framing preferences, in currently 2 different sizes:
Large: 43” x 8” - $130 (only 3 currently available).
Small: 21.5” x 4” - $50 (only 6 currently available).
If you would like to order, please be quick, as our very limited quantities will go fast. Please email me at:[email protected], subject “1915 panoramic print”. If there is great interest in these, then we will likely do a second and deeper run of each.
Context and Background:
This 1915 panoramic photo of Ocracoke, taken from the top of the Ocracoke lighthouse, is a fascinating window on the village. In that era, the island was home to about 500 people, many of whom kept well-tended gardens, as you can see in this image. A century ago, Ocracoke boasted lodging facilities, a clam factory, and numerous small businesses, in addition to many family homes.
The Tuttle Hotel complex, situated a bit left of center in this photo, was a cluster of buildings that housed overnight guests. To the extreme left, you can see the pier that belonged to Bill Gaskill’s Pamlico Inn. This inn was a popular spot for visitor accommodations until it was destroyed in the 1944 hurricane.
In about the very center of the panorama sit the Doxsee Clam Factory buildings, perched on a small spit of land, at the approximate present-day location of the entrance to our harbor. A small jog to the right from Doxsee is the old US Life Saving Station, a building that served seamen from 1904 until 1939, when the existing, red-roofed station was built to house our US Coast Guard crew.
Around the harbor are at least half a dozen general stores and ice cream parlors, a dance hall, several churches, a barber shop, and, of course, many family homes with assorted outbuildings.
As you approach the right edge of the panorama, you can see several small canal-like passages, known locally as “guts”, These divided the island in the approximate vicinity of today’s NC Highway 12 and the Island Inn property, and are responsible for the historic island divisions known as “Round Creek” and “Down Point”. Traveling across or around the guts was time-consuming, as was an outing to the ocean beach, several miles distant over hot, dry, sand.
To the far right of the photograph you can see the imposing Odd Fellows Lodge, also variously used as a private residence, the Ocracoke School, and the Silver Lake Inn. The building and land were purchased by Ocracoke Preservation Society, and is now run as Ocracoke Commons Visitor and Cultural Center.
