place

Fort Caswell Rifle Range

Brunswick County, North Carolina
Caswell Dunes WWI Rifle Range Painting
Caswell Dunes WWI Rifle Range Painting

The Fort Caswell Rifle Range located in Caswell Beach NC, is a discontiguous part of Fort Caswell which defended Confederate positions on the North Carolina coast during the Civil War and served both as an army training ground in World War I and a patrol/ communications base in World War II. In 2013, the rifle range which was constructed during WWI, along with Fort Caswell itself, was designated as a National Register of Historic Places property.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Fort Caswell Rifle Range (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Fort Caswell Rifle Range
Caswell Beach Road,

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Wikipedia: Fort Caswell Rifle RangeContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 33.903611111111 ° E -78.060555555556 °
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Address

Oak Island Golf Club

Caswell Beach Road 928
28465
North Carolina, United States
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Phone number

call+19102785275

Website
oakislandgolf.com

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Caswell Dunes WWI Rifle Range Painting
Caswell Dunes WWI Rifle Range Painting
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Nearby Places

Cape Fear Light
Cape Fear Light

Cape Fear Lighthouse was a coastal beacon built in 1903, replacing the Bald Head Lighthouse as the main navigation aid for Cape Fear and the Frying Pan Shoals off the coast of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It stood near the cape on Bald Head Island. It was a steel octagonal pyramidal skeleton frame lighthouse, as opposed to the conical brick lighthouses usually associated with the state. It was painted red and white horizontal stripes: three white and two red and housed a first-order Fresnel lens produced by the Henry-LePaute Company in France. In August 1906, the upper part of the tower above the columns was changed from white to black to provide a more conspicuous day beacon. In 1915, $35,000 was requested to disassemble and move the tower and dwellings to the site of Bald Head Lighthouse, as it was believed that shoreline erosion would soon endanger the structures. Apparently the erosion ceased because the funding request was not repeated and the keepers dwellings still stand today on their original location near the concrete foundation blocks that once supported the lighthouse. The Cape Fear Light was maintained for more than half of its life by Capt. Charlie Swan, its lighthouse keeper. On December 5, 1932, first assistant lighthouse keeper, Devaney F. Jennette, died of a heart attack while in the watch room. He had just climbed the tower and was talking to Capt. Swan at the time. The Cape Fear Lighthouse was replaced in 1958 by the powerful Oak Island Lighthouse. The Cape Fear lighthouse was then demolished because it was believed that if the deactivated tower remained standing it could confuse mariners. When the lighthouse was demolished the Coast Guard in an unusual move gave the first order Fresnel lens from the Cape Fear lighthouse to the demolition contractor. The intact lens ended up at an antique store in Wilmington where the prisms and glass panels were sold off piece by piece over the next 50 years. In 2009 what was left of the lens was acquired by the Old Baldy Foundation and returned to Bald Head island for restoration. Several of the glass prisms and panels from the lens that were sold off over the years have been returned to Bald Head Island. The Old Baldy Foundation plans to display the restored lens near the former site of the Cape Fear Lighthouse. The Cape Fear Lighthouse Complex, also known as Cap'n Charlie's Cottages still stands, it consists of a row of three detached light keepers' houses and a supply shed and the piers of another shed. They were constructed in 1903, along with the lighthouse.The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

CSS North Carolina

CSS North Carolina was a casemate ironclad built for the Confederate Navy in 1863 during the American Civil War by Berry & Brothers at Wilmington, North Carolina at a cost of $76,000. She was placed in commission during the latter part of the year with Commander W. T. Muse, CSN, in command. The ironclad's bulkheads above the waterline were sloped inward at a 30-degree angle and were armored with four inches of railroad iron, similar to the armor used on CSS Virginia II. There were two shuttered gun ports on each of her four casemate sides, and she carried six 8-inch cannons that could be rolled on their carriages from one port to another; she mounted one heavy pivot-rifle in the bow cannon position. North Carolina was discovered to be structurally unsound and unsuitable for use on the open ocean; her hull had become riddled with shipworm as a result of the green hull timber used for her construction. She remained in the Cape Fear River, where she had developed bad leaks, until she finally foundered on 27 September 1864, just off Smithville (modern Southport); she was serving there as a guard ship. Her sister ship CSS Raleigh was also a hard-luck ironclad. After serving in the Confederate Navy for just one week, Raleigh ran heavily aground on a sandbar called "the Rip." Her tonnage bore down heavily on the ship's unsupported aft keel, the pressure finally "breaking her back," as the tide receded; the ironclad was declared a total loss and her cannon, iron armor, and steam power plant were salvaged.