Play It Safe, Stay Off the Fort Fisher Rocks-- Part 1

From the May 7, 2017, Wilmington (NC) Star-News.

A March 25, 2017, editorial in the paper stated "Fort Fisher's "The Rocks" are now safe."

This headline came about after the North Carolina General Assembly voted down a bill to open them.

So, "The Rocks:" are safe, but walking on them is not so safe.

They were built in 1870 by the Army Corps of Engineers and closed New Inlet, a favorite Civil War blockade runner route, to keep out sand sifting into the Cape Fear River.  The head of the construction was Henry Bacon, father  of the Henry Bacon who designed and built the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..

--Old B-Runner

North Carolina's "Rocks" Are Solid-- Part 2

The two-mile dam was built by the Corps between 1874 and 1882.to close New Inlet which was opened by a particularly bad hurricane in 1761.  As early as the 1850s, surveyors and engineers had determined that currents from New Inlet were silting in the Cape Fear River channel and in time would cause the port of Wilmington's closing.

However, during the Civil War, New Inlet proved to be the preferred entrance and exit of blockade-runners.

After the war, the U.S. government hastened to close it and put the father of famed architect Henry Bacon in charge of it  He used his father's rock-laying technique developed at "The Rocks" to build up the foundation of his Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C..

--Old B-Runner