WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – The staff at the Fort Fisher Visitors Center is hoping to open its doors sometime in September.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Manager Jim Steele. “The groundwork goes back to 2008-2009. We were just getting to the point where we could not accommodate the crowds.”
It’s hard not to notice the construction project that’s been a staple of the Kure Beach landscape for the last year and a half. A completion date isn’t set in stone, but you can see the project, which is costing roughly 25 million dollars, is in the home stretch.
“We have tourists now from all parts of the globe,” said Steele. “Some perspective. Fort Fisher’s original visitor center was built in 1965 when they were happy to have 25,000 visitors a year. Since then, we’ve grown leaps and bounds and broke one million visitors in 2021.”
The fort has been a National Historic Landmark since 1961. It projected the Wilmington port during the Civil Wall, falling to US forces in 1985.
“Remember, this was a massive Civil War fortification built by the Confederates to protect blockade running into Wilmington,” Steele said. “It was the lifeline of the Confederacy.”
The visitors center also overlooks the Atlantic. Buried underneath the ocean and Cape Fear — 36 shipwrecks dating to the Civil War. The Condor Heritage Diving Site. That wreck was designated an NC Heritage Dive Site back in 2019 and is one the best preserved Civil War blockade runners in the United States.
WECT profiled the dive site back in 2019 and the history that lies beneath the surface.
“I would imagine a lot of people have no earthly idea what’s out there,” said Billy Ray Morris, who was a state deputy underwater archaeologist, at the time. “In terms of mid-19th century marine technology, we have the best collection of shipwrecks anywhere in the world.”
The visitors center will have self-guided and staff-driven tours. At more than 20,000 square feet, the center will be large enough to house a permanent and rotating exhibit of Civil War artifacts. Jim Steele says if you’ve done some local digging into your family history and have made the connection, don’t be afraid to reach out and share.
“We encourage the general public who may have manuals, letters, and other things in their family collection to let us know,” said Steele. “We’re learning more every day.”
For more information about the center and what’s in the offering: click here.
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