Topsail Island NC
An incredible vacation destination, Topsail Island is one of the soft-sand barrier islands of coastal North Carolina. Nestled between Wilmington and Jacksonville (next to Camp Legeune Marine Corp Base), it is part of both Onslow and Pender Counties.
View Vacation Rentals on Topsail Island
There are three towns located on Topsail Island, North Topsail Beach at the north end of the island, Surf City in the middle and Topsail Beach on the south end. There are two coastal inlets, at the north end and south end of the island.
Two bridges take you onto the island - State Highway 50/210 (the swing bridge) enters the island in the middle at Surf City, and State Highway 210 is a high rise bridge that enters North Topsail Island through Sneads Ferry. There is no bridge at the south end of the island. The swing bridge in Surf City will be replaced by a new highrise bridge in 2019.
Topsail has the flavor of an old time family beach with many private cottages that have been in families for generations.
From the early days when Native American Indians fished and hunted for their bounty to the military's use of the island for missile development and testing during WWII to today's modern vacation paradise, Topsail Island has had a colorful and unique history. Not much has changed from the Good Old Days.
So, what is there to do on Topsail Island? Everything, or nothing! That's the beauty and charm of the island and what keeps people coming back.
You can spend your days lying on the beach soaking up the sun or try hunting the beach for Treasures in the Sand, natures bounty deposited in the soft sand beaches of Topsail Island.
You can take a ride and see if you can find all of the missile observation towers left on the island from it's military days, search for souvenirs and gifts at one of the shops on the island or take in one of the many family fun attractions or area events or get a great meal in one of the restaurants in the greater Topsail Area.
Topsail Island's Prehistoric Layer 
Ever wonder what beach combers are searching for as they walk at the edge of the ocean with their heads peering sand ward? It could be anything really; shells, rocks, sea glass or even Blackbeard's gold.
But for most Topsail Island NC visitors, the treasure they seek is shark teeth. Shark teeth come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They can vary in color from grey, black, brown, to even red.
Our local beaches are unique to this part of the country in that teeth, fossils, and bones regularly wash up on our shores. There is a prehistoric layer that is constantly eroding off our coast from wave action and that brings teeth onto our local sands.
Depending on the wave direction and tides, the beach can be littered with teeth or sometimes there's none to be found at all. The best time to find them is usually at low tide in the many piles of shells and other assorted things that wash up on shore. After big storms or hurricanes, the beaches will have copious amounts of large fossil rocks and even prehistoric oysters as large as a shoe. Every couple of years, someone usually finds a mastodon tooth or fossil horse tooth that makes it out of the fossil layer onto the beach.
North Topsail Beach
At the north end of the island, this community may be hard to spot. Mostly residential, it does not really have a defined central business district like Surf City.
It is the wildest part of the island, and the sound side (Stump Sound) is full of broken trees from the effects of coastal storms and must surely be the way the island was before development.
North Topsail Beach is a fisherman's paradise. Stump Sound is full of fish, oysters, clams and shrimp. New River Inlet, on the north end of the island, is a favorite place to fish, there is a big hard sand parking area, and you can drive on the strand. A permit is required to drive on the beach at New River Inlet.
The waters around here support a lot of fishing families. Canoers and kayakers will love the whole area because of the many places with easy access to the ocean and sound.
If you're thinking about bringing your boat through the inlet, you'd better know what you're doing, the currents are very strong.
Town of North Topsail Beach Website
Surf City
In the middle of the island, Surf City starts over on the mainland, crosses over the swing bridge, and extends north and south several miles from the business district. Most of the business that cater to beach visitors are here, with gift shops, beachwear shops, and fishing equipment stores.
Many of the beach restaurants on the island are near here. Several fresh seafood stores are located near their boat docks, and a lot of the fish goes straight from the ocean to the boat to the store.
Surf City is also home to lots of working fishermen. Take away all the touristy stuff and you would be left with a thriving coastal fishing village. The waters around Topsail are rich fishing grounds, and you will see boats of all kinds and sizes. "Head" boats take lots of people fishing for a day or half-day outing. Commercial charter operators will take smaller parties out to fish for certain kinds of fish, or to certain areas to fish.
And at just about any time you'll see the fleets of shrimpers and other commercial fishing boats working along the waterway, sounds and offshore
Topsail Beach
The town on the south end, this is home to some of America's first rocket tests. Look around, maybe you've seen them already.
Those tall white buildings are the missile observation towers used during the first experiments. Many are used as homes, some for storage, and some are unchanged.
What's downtown? There are some beach motels and town government buildings, the fire department and police department. There's a Post Office, a grocery store and gas station, some gift shops, a real nice book store and the town train depot. Well, ok, the town train depot is over at the Beach Shop and Grill, and it's pretty small.
The "Assembly Building" is where the missiles were assembled before being test fired, and it is the home of the Missiles and More Museum.
Topsail Inlet is on the south end and defines the southern tip of the island. There is a large dune area, and wide beachfront. You can drive on this section of the beach to fish, but a permit is required. There are several beach access areas within a short walk to the inlet.
New Topsail Inlet is charted, and buoyed, but deserves caution in any kind of weather.
A row of townhouses face the inlet, and, once in Banks Channel, there are many boat docks, ramps and at least one marina.
Topsail Island History
From the early days when native American Indians fished and hunted to today's modern vacation paradise, Topsail Island has always had a colorful and unique history.
Pirate Legends
Where did the Topsail Island’s name come from? Legend has it that many moons ago, pirates used to hang out in the sound between the island and the mainland. When they spied a likely prospect to plunder, they’d race out and do their pirate thing to the hapless merchant ship. Eventually the merchantmen figured this out, so when they saw the top sails of a ship behind the island, they figured it was a pirate. Whether that helped them to avoid the pirates or not, who knows? But it’s a cool legend. By the way, only visitors pronounce the name Top-sail; it’s properly Top’sl.
In the 1930's, many men came over and dug a big hole in the island. They were looking for something, but wouldn't say what. They excavated, shored and braced, worked a crew long and hard, then, just as suddenly, they were gone.
Was it buried treasure? Did they find it? Why did they leave so suddenly? No one knows.
But the big treasure hunt wasn't for pirate treasure, it was to recover lost treasure from a Spanish galleon wrecked near Topsail Inlet in August 1750.
The Army Moves In
During WW II the Army moved their antiaircraft artillery school to the new Army camp on the island (Camp Davis) and set up their gunnery practice areas at Sears Landing, near the pontoon ferry to the island.
Coastal defense guns were set up on the beachfront and the gunners could practice firing at targets towed offshore by small boats.
Camp Davis was built up almost overnight. Construction started the day after Christmas in 1940 and the first troops moved in five months later, in April 1941. Then the war ended, and just as quickly as the base built up, it emptied.
And Then Came the Navy
Camp Davis sprang to life again when the Navy took charge June 1, 1946, after the war, because they needed a remote area for their secret rocket experiments, known as the Bumblebee project.
The Navy Bureau of Ordnance and John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built camera towers, roads, buildings, and a revised pontoon bridge for the secret missile test facility.
On this 26 mile beach test range, some 200 experimental rockets were fired from 1947 to 1948.
Missile experiments on Topsail Island led to the development of technology used in 'Talos', a shipborne system. 'Talos' used a solid fuel booster first stage to accelerate the second stage to the critical velocity required by the ramjet second stage.
Look around and you can't miss seeing several odd-shaped white concrete buildings, and some other large buildings. Many of today's buildings on Topsail Island were built from lumber that had been used in base buildings.
You can see Topsail history come alive at the Topsail Island Missiles and More Museum located in the Assembly Building at 720 Channel Boulevard at Topsail Beach.
Submarines Here?
Even though most of World War II was fought in Europe and the Pacific, some of the fighting was done right here in North Carolina?
Wilmington's shipyards produced "Liberty" ships throughout the war, and the port was important to the war effort.
Here is a list of some known wrecks in Onslow Bay from that time:
• U-352, 218' German Submarine sunk by the "Icarus"
• Empire Gem, 463' tanker torpedoed by U-66, Jan 23, 1943
• Dixie Arrow, 468' tanker torpedoed by U-71, Mar 26, 1942
• E M Clark, 516' tanker torpedoed by U-124, Mar 18, 1942
• Malachace, 334' freighter torpedoed by U-160, Apr 9, 1942
• Manuela, 394' freighter torpedoed by U-404, Jun 24, 1942
• Far East Tanker, 435' tanker torpedoed by U-552, Apr 9, 1942
• D Wreck, 251' freighter torpedoed by U-158, Mar 11, 19??
• Atlas Tanker, 430' tanker torpedoed by U-552, Apr 9, 1942
• Ashkabad, 401' Russian freighter torpedoed by U-402, May 3, 1942
• Papoose, 412' tanker torpedoed by U-124, Mar 23, 1942
• Naeco, 412' tanker torpedoed by U-124, Mar 23, 1942
• W E Hutton, 435' tanker torpedoed by U-124, Mar 18, 1942
• Esso Nashville, 445' tanker torpedoed by U-124, Mar 21, 1942
You can find out much more about the US Navy and German submarines that navigated North Carolina's coastline at http://www.uboat.net .
Missile Observation Towers
There were eight towers in all. The one between the Assembly Building and the launchpad (now the patio at the Jolly Roger Inn) was the control tower. The other towers held cameras and telemetering equipment used to track the flight of the missile.
A couple of these towers have now been made into very attractive homes, one on the beachfront and another overlooking the sound.
