RODANTHE, N.C. — The state Transportation Department will dedicate a bridge along the Outer Banks to a U.S. Coast Guard captain who went from being a slave to the first African-American to command a life-saving station.
The state will dedicate the Pea Island Interim Bridge as the Captain Richard Etheridge Bridge in a ceremony Tuesday at the Rodanthe-Waves-Salvo Community Building.
The bridge was completed last year. It replaced the temporary metal bridge that spanned a breach opened during Hurricane Irene in 2011 along N.C. Highway 12.
Etheridge became the leader of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station, an all African-American unit credited with saving many lives. The Coast Guard awarded Etheridge and his crew a medal for the rescue of those aboard the E.S. Newman during a hurricane in 1896.
Etheridge died in 1900.
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Associated Press