About Our Hotel

Though it was officially established in 1709, the history of North Carolina’s third-oldest town begins long before then. Native Americans had been fishing these waters for hundreds of years before the first European settlers arrived in the late 1600s. Beaufort was originally called “Fish Town” during the 1600s for that very reason—fishing and seafaring had always been the industry that Beaufort had depended on to survive.

By the 1890s, Beaufort had become synonymous with Menhaden, a small herring-like fish that fertilized crops and produced valuable oil used for paints, lamps, and animal feed. As the fishing industry ramped up in post-Civil War Beaufort, the smell of menhaden became a near-permanent fixture in town. “The smell of money,” locals called it.

Through the 1960s, menhaden fishing would continue to flourish, with four of seven major reduction factories in North Carolina operating in Beaufort alone. By the 70s, however, competition from foreign sources and a reduction in fish populations caused the industry to begin to dwindle—just as tourism began to rise. Vacationers and retirees from inland cities and northern states had started to take notice of Beaufort; the waterfront’s allure remained, but Beaufort had begun a new era.