PEA ISLAND STATION

Richard Etheridge at far left

In the 1880s, Pea Island in North Carolina was home of the first U.S. Life Saving Service station staffed exclusively by African Americans and commanded by a black officer, Richard Etheridge.

The station earned the reputation of "one of the tautest on the Carolina Coast" under Ethridge.

Belonging to the Life Saving Service "took extensive training and continual practice to be able to successfully launch a lifeboat or surfboat in heavy seas and shoot the Lyle Gun to a ship offshore to set up the breeches buoy," according to the U.S. Life-Saving Heritage Association.

In clear daylight, men kept watch from a station's tower. At night and during periods of daytime fog, they paced beaches, lighting flares to warn off ships too close to shore.

On Oct. 11, 1896, Etheridge and his men staged a daring rescue of nine people from the schooner E.S. Newman - which was blown off course and beached nearby - by braving the pounding surf 10 times. 

On the 100th anniversary of that rescue, the crew was posthumously awarded a Gold Lifesaving Medal, according to the National Park Service.  

Additionally, a Sentinel-class cutter named for Ethridge was launched in 2011.