Eagles Island: A Working Landscape

For more than a century, Eagles Island was one of the Cape Fear region’s busiest working landscapes. Its shoreline contained ferry landings, railroad facilities, naval-stores operations, warehouses, shipyards, marine railways, and what became one of North Carolina’s most remarkable collections of abandoned vessels.

This interactive historical project brings that largely vanished waterfront back into view through archival photographs, historical maps, archaeological evidence, and a carefully researched timeline. It also examines the rice fields and Gullah Geechee heritage that preceded the industrial shoreline and the ferries, causeway, and bridges that connected Wilmington with Brunswick County.

The project is grounded particularly in the research of Sami Kay Seeb and Robert J. Minford, supplemented by the archaeological work of Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing, Joni Thomas “Osku” Backstrom, and other historians, researchers, museums, libraries, and public agencies.