The North Carolina State Highway Commission was created by the General Assembly in 1915 thanks to the growing number of automobiles all across the nation and the state. The first known statewide "road map" was issued by this organization in 1916, and it was updated annually until 2008, and then biennially. The Highway Commission was renamed to the Department of Transportation 1971. With the advent of the Internet and the various map websites as shown below, the State now issues a total state road map every other year, but this Author has not found any online as yet.

By 1930, the State Highway Commission maintained "road maps" for each of the one hundred (100) counties within North Carolina to assist in their planning of future highways and thoroughfares across the state. It is not clear to this Author that these county "road maps" were updated yearly since only a handful have been found online. This Author has found a few more than what's included here, but the objective herein is to provide a sampling of each county's "road map" at the end of each decade. As you will find, not all have been found, but what's provided is as close to a "decade-by-decade" representation as possible.