Carolina Beach State park Campground

The park, which covers 761 acres of Carolina Beach or Pleasure Island, is a blissful retreat for nature lovers, kayakers, boaters, hikers, joggers, bird watchers, and naturalists of all genres. With rare and unique species that can only be found in this region of North Carolina, and endless active ways to explore the terrain, Carolina Beach visitors will be pleasantly surprised by this expansive and quiet off-the-beach destination.
Many archeologists believe that the park, located adjacent to the banks of the Cape Fear River, was originally home to the Cape Fear Indians. Recent excavations within the park, which produced a number of finds including pottery shards, arrowheads, and mounds of oyster shells, support this theory, in addition to multiple accounts of hostile natives disrupting colonization efforts in the early 1700s. By 1726, however, the Indians had been driven out, and a permanent settlement had been formed along the lower Cape Fear. As trade and commerce boomed, passing mariners from as early as 1663 used “Sugarloaf,” a 50-foot sand dune located near the park’s river banks, as a navigational marker, and later during the Civil War as a defense for the Confederacy against the Union’s assault on the Port of Wilmington.

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