National Register of Historic Places
Fort Caswell Historic District
Caswell Beach vicinity, Brunswick County, North Carolina
The record
- Listed
- December 31, 2013
- Type
- Historic district
- Address
- 100 Caswell Beach Rd., Caswell Beach vicinity
- County
- Brunswick
- State
- North Carolina
- Contributing resources
- 43 buildings, 23 structures, 1 site
- Coordinates
- 33.89302, -78.01780
- Reference number
- 13001025
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
The outline is the area recorded for this listing in National Park Service map data, drawn approximately.
Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUSGS Historical Topographic Map Collection
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
The Fort Caswell Historic District is a district near Caswell Beach in Brunswick County, North Carolina, centered on a fort begun in 1827 and completed in 1838. It covers 760 acres with 43 contributing buildings, one site and 23 structures, and was listed in the National Register in 2013.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A, C and D, with state-level significance in architecture, engineering, military and historic non-aboriginal archeology. Its significance runs from circa 1827 to 1948, reflecting construction that began in 1827 and the fort's decommissioning as surplus government property in 1948.
Physical character
The fort is a five-sided masonry structure surrounded by a moat, with brick and stucco walls and foundations up to a foot thick and seven later batteries of reinforced concrete. The citadel on the parade ground burned in 1865; a 1943 gymnasium replaced a burned auditorium, and granite and weatherboard walls appear on later buildings.
Historical context
Congress authorized a fort on Oak Island in 1825; named for Richard Caswell in 1833, it was held by Confederate militia under Colonel John Lucas Cantwell from 1861. Construction of seven batteries began in 1895, and the hospital was completed in 1898 and the administrative building in 1899. Declared surplus in 1948, the fort was bought in 1949 by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, and that year it became a retreat center and camp known as the Baptist Assembly.