Located near Kure Beach, North Carolina, it includes Fort Fisher, site of a major naval engagement during the American Civil War.

Harrill lived in a bunker and shared his beliefs about "common sense" with thousands of visitors every year while surviving on what he could gather from the surrounding salt marsh and oyster beds.

Today, the recreation area consists of the remains of the earthen Fort Fisher and a museum at Fort Fisher State Historic Site, an oceanfront beach pavilion, a large lagoon popular with windsurfers, and a long stretch of beach that is accessible only by four-wheel drive vehicles.

The city of Wilmington on the Cape Fear River was an important port of entry for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

[2] Completed in 1881, The Rocks closed the former New Inlet, once used by Confederate blockade-runners to avoid the U.S. Navy, and created a lagoon, now called "The Basin".