The first families to settle in Salter Path arrived in the late 1890s from Diamond City, which at the time was a whaling community on Shackleford Banks. Shackleford Banks is a 9-mile-long island that is now part of Cape Lookout National Seashore.

By 1897 approximately 500 people were living in Diamond City, a town with several stores, a school, a post office and church buildings. Hard storms in the late 1890s convinced many Diamond City residents that it was time to leave the island. Many cut their homes into sections, tied them to skiffs and floated or sailed their dwellings across the water. Once at the new home site, the houses were reconstructed. Many residents of Diamond City settled on Harkers Island, in the Shackleford Street area of Morehead City or in Salter Path on Bogue Banks. 

Legend has it that the name Salter Path originated with Joshua Salter, a Broad Creek resident who often traveled by boat from the mainland to fish and hunt on Bogue Banks. Stories say he made a path from the sound side of the island, where he anchored his boat, to the oceanfront. Folks called the walkway Salter's Path, and like many things in Carteret County, the name just stuck.

Many locals credit the early residents of Salter Path with bringing shrimp into the culinary limelight. Early fishermen considered these delectable creatures a menace, and enjoyed instead such community fishing catches as the jumpin' mullet. But after local residents began to eat them, shrimp soon became a marketable and profitable commodity. Shrimping is now a lucrative industry along the Crystal Coast, much to the joy of residents and visitors alike.