Welcome to Newport, North Carolina!

The town of Newport is located on the East Coast of North Carolina. It is in Carteret County, on the banks of the Newport River. The town is adjacent to, and northwest of Morehead City, on US Hyway 70.

The town government operates as a council-manager form of government with a mayor, a town manager, and a five-member town council. The mayor of Newport, Derryl Garner, has served since 1978 and is active with the North Carolina League of Municipalities, the Morehead City Ports Committee and numerous other civic and governmental organizations. Davud Heath, Frank Blunt,Ken Davis, Richard Kanuck and Eric Lindblade serve as town councilmen.

The town is protected by a volunteer fire department, founded in the 1940s by the late Leon Mann, Jr. The department also provides emergency medical and ambulance services.

Public schools in Newport include Newport Elementary School and Newport Middle School. Newport Consolidated School, a first-through-12th-grade school established in 1926, was demolished in 1966 after the county completed construction of a new consolidated high school, West Carteret High in nearby Morehead City. Members of the Newport Consolidated School Alumni Association operate a small school museum in a depot warehouse owned by the North Carolina Railroad in Newport.

History of the Town of Newport

Newport was officially chartered in 1866. Although the crossroads community on the Newport River was known by that name decades earlier, the area was also known as Bell's Corner and Shepardsville in earlier years.

Early industry included agriculture, logging, and naval stores, including turpentine production. During the town's early history, the Newport River was navigable all the way to Old Topsail Inlet, now known as Beaufort Inlet, which opens to the Atlantic Ocean. The town was home to one of the earliest organized churches in Carteret County, the Newport River Primitive Baptist Church, established 1778. The structure was burned near the end of the American Civil War but soon rebuilt on Church Street and remains active today.

In 1858, the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad was completed when the final 96-mile stretch of rail from Goldsboro through Newport to Beaufort was laid. The community is also the site of numerous Civil War battlefields, forts, and strategic locations. Newport was occupied by Union forces for much of the war.

Part of the town's residential area known as the "housing project" was originally developed as housing for civil service employees and military serving at nearby Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point

Education and Schools

Newport Elementary School
Chatham St.
252-223-4201

Newport Middle School
500E. Chatham St
252-223-3482

Newport Developmental Center for Handicapped Children.
903 Church St.
252-223-4574

Carteret County Schools Administration
252-728-4583
carteretcountyschools.org