Salvo, originally called Clarks or Clarksville, lay south of two neighboring villages from which it was separated by a cow pen, and its residents were known for productive island gardens and musicality in its two churches. The village received its name during the Civil War when a Union ship passed offshore, its commander asked the navigation officer for the village’s name, and, finding none, ordered, “give it a salvo anyway”; the officer then wrote “salvo” on the chart with an arrow toward the village. In 1901 the community adopted Salvo as its official name when it established its first post office. Its first postmaster was the blind Methodist minister Kenneth R. Pugh, assisted by Maria Hooper, and the post office first operated from a shed room on his porch. Around 1912 Lafayette Douglas, a fisherman and carpenter, built the village’s distinctive two-room, ninety-six-square-foot post office building for his wife Marcia Douglas, the second postmaster. Later postmasters bought the building and moved it to their own properties, and the U.S. Postal Service recognizes it as the nation’s second smallest post office building. It remained in continuous postal use until October 12, 1992, and now stands at the Salvo Fire Station. Salvo also produced an early Dare County sheriff, Lorenzo D. “Ransey” Farrow, who served from 1917 to 1928.