Abstract:
A few months ago everybody in New Bern knew everybody else, but today there are so many strangers that the town is assuming a metropolitan air. When in the fall of 1940 Craven County and the City of New Bern jointly purchased the site for the Simmons-Knot airport, few could have foreseen that the summer of 1941 would find 500 marines and 75 airplanes stationed there for training purposes. The influx of people is causing expansion and growing pains.