Progress is a contradictory term, one that inherently means an improvement of luxury and an advancement of technology, yet usually at the expense of a community's identity, traditions, and history. Though many buildings survived Civil War skirmishes and Northern occupation during Reconstruction, these same structures did not escape the plans of ambitious entrepreneurs and thus disappeared from Wilmington's landscape, only to be replaced, over time, by shopping plazas and nationally recognizable commercial facades. Cape Fear Lost celebrates places that have vanished from presentday Wilmington. In this volume of more than 200 photographs, you will be able to explore the Wilmington of a bygone era, one punctuated by unpaved tree-lined streets and architecturally diverse dwellings. As you thumb through these pages, you will experience firsthand the beauty of many former mansions scattered throughout the downtown area, familiar churches, civic buildings and schools that once dotted the cityscape, the many businesses that utilized the pedestrian, horse-and-wagon, and shipping traffic along Market Street, and the transformation of Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach from humble summer bungalows into major tourist retreats. These varied scenes allow you an extraordinary insight into this coastal community's changing character over the past century and a half.

Cape Fear Lost (Images of America: North Carolina)

Arts & Photography

Taylor Block, Susan

Photography & Video

Arcadia Publishing

In Cape Fear Beaches, with more than 200 rare, black-and-white photographs, you will step back into affectionate memory, when early residents slept in hammocks in precarious beach shacks, when grand buildings, such as Lumina and the Oceanic Hotel, dotted the beachscape, when road repair meant a shovelful of oyster shells to mend a pothole, and when bathing suits left almost everything to the imagination. This volume also recounts the black community’s experiences along these beaches, primarily at Seabreeze and Shell Island, and shares their personal stories and triumphs in a changing social scene, in which Reconstruction values slowly gave way to Civil Rights–era equality. Throughout the book, scenes of proud fishermen, both amateur and professional, with their daily catches, snapshots of family picnics on the beach, and photographs of friends posed with the ocean as a backdrop remind us that at the beach, the pace of life is measured not by the hands of a clock, but by the steady, changing tides.

Cape Fear Beaches (NC) (Images of America)

Since 1739, Wilmington has seen centuries of change along the banks of the Cape Fear River to the beaches of the Atlantic. Through the years much has been lost to war, neglect, and progress, but in many places the past is well preserved and still visible today. The city's enduring spirit is evident in these images of past and present.

Wilmington (NC) (Then & Now)

From the days of Lumina and the Oceanic Hotel, when doors were never locked and people knew their neighbors, Wrightsville Beach has seen many changes while its spirit has stayed much the same. These images illustrate the people, the events, and the everyday scenes that make up Wrightsville Beach's story.

Wrightsville Beach (Postcards of America)

History

Americas

Nestled between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, Wilmington, North Carolina, is at the center of the historic Cape Fear region. Incorporated in 1740, Wilmington has been called home by such notables as Woodrow Wilson, David Brinkley, Whistler’s mother, and Frank Capra Jr. Sports fans know Wilmington as the hometown of famed basketball player Michael Jordan. In Along the Cape Fear, local historian and author Susan Taylor Block explores this picturesque region of beautiful nearby beaches and charming eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. Readers are invited to see why the Wilmington area has attracted everyone from heads of state, to history buffs, to directors of major motion pictures.

Along the Cape Fear (Images of America)

Progress is a contradictory term, one that inherently means an improvement of luxury and an advancement of technology, yet usually at the expense of a community's identity, traditions, and history. Though many buildings survived Civil War skirmishes and Northern occupation during Reconstruction, these same structures did not escape the plans of ambitious entrepreneurs and thus disappeared from Wilmington's landscape, only to be replaced, over time, by shopping plazas and nationally recognizable commercial facades. Cape Fear Lost celebrates places that have vanished from presentday Wilmington. In this volume of more than 200 photographs, you will be able to explore the Wilmington of a bygone era, one punctuated by unpaved tree-lined streets and architecturally diverse dwellings. As you thumb through these pages, you will experience firsthand the beauty of many former mansions scattered throughout the downtown area, familiar churches, civic buildings and schools that once dotted the cityscape, the many businesses that utilized the pedestrian, horse-and-wagon, and shipping traffic along Market Street, and the transformation of Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach from humble summer bungalows into major tourist retreats. These varied scenes allow you an extraordinary insight into this coastal community's changing character over the past century and a half.

Cape Fear Lost

Block, Susan Taylor

Cape Fear Museum

Arcadia Publishing Library Editions

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