The Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City serves as the northeastern regional branch of the North Carolina Museum of History and interprets the history and culture of the 16-county Albemarle region. Its location is notable because the Albemarle area is often linked to the earliest English colonization in North America through nearby Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony of 1585. Founded in 1967 in a former North Carolina Highway Patrol station, the museum moved in 2008 to a larger four-story building on the downtown waterfront. Its permanent exhibition, Our Story – Life in the Albemarle, displays more than 700 artifacts tracing regional life and history.