By Catherine M. Welch
Wilmington, NC – New Hanover County officials are planning to roll out a new county seal in 2007.
The county's current seal shows a large, docked ship with the words imports, exports, industry. There are no records indicating why it became the county seal in 1945, and whether the ship represents the port, the Battleship North Carolina or a World War Two liberty ship.
Chairman of the New Hanover County Commissioners Bill Caster says the clock tower at the historic county courthouse will serve as a better county logo.
And I would think anybody who goes into that building would do an ohh and an ahh because of its beauty and its historic significance to New Hanover County. And then what you see of the courthouse from the outside is that cupola with the clock on it
Caster says the move last year to new county offices sparked the idea to change the county's seal.
Star-News reports from 1992 show the county debating changing the seal back then with a suggestion to change it to a trolley car similar to the ones that used to roll down Wilmington streets.