Qualla: New Hanover County, North Carolina

New Hanover County, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GBoi-117, CC BY 4.0. If you measure New Hanover County by land area, it is one of the smallest in North Carolina - only Chowan is smaller. If you measure it by population, it ranks among the largest. If you measure it by historical weight, it may rank first. This is the county where, in 1898, a white supremacist mob overthrew the elected, biracial government of Wilmington in the only successful coup d'etat in American history. It is also where Verrazzano made landfall in 1524, where Michael Jordan grew up, where Hollywood East shoots film and television, and where the Cape Fear River - dark with tannin, fast at the bends - empties past Fort Fisher into the Atlantic.

Image: GBoi-117 | CC BY 4.0

New Hanover County, North Carolina: Before Anyone Stayed

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Synnibang, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Cape Fear Indians lived in this place from at least 8000 BC. By the time European ships arrived, theirs was already an old culture braided with the Waccamaw Siouan. The first European to see the coast was the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, sailing for France...

Image: Synnibang | CC BY-SA 4.0

New Hanover County, North Carolina: A Port City Built on Slavery

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0. The county was formed in 1729 as New Hanover Precinct, named for the German royal house then ruling Great Britain. By the 18th century the Port of Brunswick was the most important harbor in colonial North Carolina, soon overtaken by Wilmington just upriver. The economy was rice, ...

Image: Farragutful | CC BY-SA 4.0

New Hanover County, North Carolina: The Coup of 1898

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Upstateherd, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wilmington in the 1890s was something almost no other Southern city was - majority Black and prospering. A Fusion coalition of Black Republicans and white Populists controlled the city. Three of ten aldermen were Black. The county coroner, the deputy court clerk, the city jailer ...

Image: Upstateherd | CC BY-SA 4.0

New Hanover County, North Carolina: Hollywood East and the Boom

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wilmington's economy spent most of the 20th century looking for a new identity. The cotton trade collapsed during Reconstruction. World War I brought brief work in shipbuilding. World War II brought more, and the post-war boom started filling out the suburbs. The University of No...

Image: Farragutful | CC BY-SA 4.0

New Hanover County, North Carolina: Coast, Forts, and the Battleship

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. The county's coast is its identity. Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach front the Atlantic. Masonboro Island, an undeveloped barrier strand, is a state reserve. Pleasure Island, Figure Eight Island, and Zeke's Island all sit within county lines. Fort Fisher, at the...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0