Qualla: Beaufort, North Carolina

Beaufort, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aurora30 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. In November 1996, divers off Beaufort Inlet found the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship, sitting in 25 feet of water where it had grounded in 1718. The pirate himself died at Ocracoke a few months after losing the ship, but the wreck, lying barely a mile offshore from this 4,464-person town, anchors a story Beaufort has been telling for three centuries: that the past here is not buried, it is underwater, and now and then it surfaces.

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Image: Aurora30 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Beaufort, North Carolina: America's Coolest Small Town

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michelle Underhill, CC BY 2.0. On February 1, 2012, the readers of Budget Travel Magazine voted Beaufort America's Coolest Small Town. The honor surprised no one who had spent an afternoon walking Front Street, where preserved 18th- and 19th-century homes line the brick sidewalks and shrimp boats tie up alongs...

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Image: Michelle Underhill | CC BY 2.0

Beaufort, North Carolina: Pirate Invasion Weekend

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jarek Tuszyński, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beaufort knows what its history is and leans into it. The Beaufort Pirate Invasion is an annual costumed festival commemorating the town's golden-age-of-piracy connections. The Beaufort Music Festival, the Wooden Boat Show at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, the BARTA Fishing ...

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Image: Jarek Tuszyński | CC BY-SA 3.0

Beaufort, North Carolina: Nineteen Sister Cities Named Beaufort

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit self, Public domain. The name Beaufort appears all over the world. According to Beaufort Sister Cities, Inc., the town has nineteen sister cities, every one of them also called Beaufort. There are nine Beauforts in France alone, with Beaufort, Haute-Garonne, Beaufort, Herault, Beaufort-en-Vallee, Bea...

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Image: self | Public domain

Beaufort, North Carolina: Highway 70 and Michael J. Smith Field

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Getting to Beaufort means US 70 from the west and NC 101 from the north. The town's airport, Michael J. Smith Field (KMRH), is named for the astronaut killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986; Smith was born in Beaufort and graduated from East Carteret High School ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain