Ice-house at the Pamlico Packing Co. complex on First Street in Vandemere(click on image to enlarge)
Today I took an afternoon drive to some parts of Pamlico County I have not previously visited by land.
This is one of the buildings at the "Pamlico Packing Co." fish-house complex on First Street in the town of Vandemere (population 289)(Vandemere town web site here), at the confluence of Vandemere Creek into Bay River (see map below). A "fish-house" is a place where commercial fishing vessels can dock and unload their catch for processing, packing and loading onto trucks for trans-shipment.
This building was (is?) apparently the ice-house on the complex... Commercial fishing vessels need vast quantities of ice in their holds to keep their catches fresh until they get back to the fish-house, so ice production is a standard function at fish-houses.
According to this New Bern Sun Journal article about Vandemere, the "Pamlico Packing Co." was formerly the "I.J. Packing Co." until purchased and renamed in 1941 by Earl Holton and his brother-in-law Robert Whorton (who also once owned a packing and canning company here in Oriental.)
I can find nothing about "Homer Wall," whom the sign on this building identifies as the owner of "Wall's." According to Pamlico County tax records, the part of the complex on which this building stands is owned by Pamlico Packing and "Vandemere Ice Co.," which NC Sec'y of State in turn indicates is still owned by the son-in-law of Earl Holton...
A local informed me the fish-house is still operational, though it looks to me like some of the buildings are not used very much, if at all.
The ice-house building is marked on the map below:
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