One can stand on a beautiful overlook in the Appalachian Mountains, then drive and enjoy the verdant Piedmont, and later listen to the cresting waves of the Atlantic Ocean — all in one day.
Fort Bragg is a United States Army base located west of Fayetteville, North Carolina and is the one of the largest military bases in the world. Covering 251 square miles in four different counties, Fort Bragg is home to the U.S. Army’s Airborne Forces and Special Forces and also houses U.S. Army Forces Command and U.S. Army Reserve Command.
Street signs can be much more than guideposts. They often can provide interesting clues into an area’s history.
Located in Wilmington, Oakdale Cemetery is the largest in the city, and many prominent Wilmingtonians are buried there. Oakdale is also known for being North Carolina’s first rural cemetery.
Currituck Beach Lighthouse is located on the Outer Banks in Corolla, North Carolina. It was put on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1973; the lighthouse is the last brick lighthouse built on the Outer Banks.
Located on Union Square in downtown Raleigh, the North Carolina State Capitol was opened in 1840. Today, the Capitol houses only the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor and their staff.
Every June, the community of Spivey’s Corner hosts The National Hollerin’ Contest. Once used by farmers and rural neighbors to communicate across long distances, hollering fell away at the beginning of the twentieth century because of telephone use. The Hollerin’ Contest seeks to preserve the lost art alive, and nearly 3,000 tourists visit Sampson County to learn and celebrate it at the folk festival.
One of the largest and most ornate buildings in colonial North Carolina, the Tryon Palace was built in the late 1760s at the behest of its namesake, Royal Governor William Tryon. John Hawks was the architect, and the government assembly chambers and the house were dedicated on December 5, 1770. Increased taxes to pay for the palace’s construction angered many Piedmont colonists. After the American Revolution, the palace burnt down in a fire in 1798. In 1959, after efforts to restore the site, Tryon Palace opened as the state’s first historic site.
Considered by some critics to be an Ernest Hemingway spinoff, Robert Ruark’s The Old Man and the Boy (1957) is the North Carolina writer’s most famous work. In it, he remembers his North Carolina boyhood and the life lessons learned from his maternal grandfather
Located in what is now Hyde County and named by Algonquian Indians, Lake Mattamuskeet, meaning “near marsh or bog,” is North Carolina’s largest natural lake. It is seven miles wide and eighteen miles long, covering 40,000 acres, and is part of the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge.