Qualla: Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edward Orde, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the night of May 3, 1905, the Lumina Pavilion lit up for the first time and people in boats out on Banks Channel said they could see the glow from miles away. Six thousand exterior lights covered the building. The dance floor inside spanned twenty-five thousand square feet. You reached it by electric streetcar from downtown Wilmington, a forty-minute ride that crossed the marsh on a wooden trestle, then stopped at one of seven stations along what would become South Lumina Avenue. The Big Bands played there in the 1930s and 1940s - Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Cab Calloway when he was passing through. The Lumina is gone now, condemned in 1973, replaced by beach condominiums. The name survives - on the avenue, on the campus theater at UNCW, on the memory of an island that was once the brightest place on the Carolina coast.

Image: Edward Orde | CC BY-SA 4.0

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina: Before the Bridge

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Lords Proprietors granted the first 640 acres on what would become Harbor Island to Charles Harrison in 1725. For the next 128 years almost nothing happened. The beach was accessible only by boat. In 1853 seven Wilmington men who liked to sail organized the Carolina Yacht Clu...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina: Hugh MacRae and the Electric Streetcar

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brianriceca, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1902 Hugh MacRae, a Wilmington businessman who had already built a small power company, consolidated the area's railroads and trolleys into the Consolidated Railroad, Power & Light Company. He converted the Ocean View Railroad to an electric streetcar and ran it from downtown ...

Image: Brianriceca | CC BY-SA 3.0

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina: Lumina and Shell Island

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dalton Jackson, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Lumina Pavilion opened in 1905 as the centerpiece of the MacRae family's beach resort. The dance floor drew the most attention, but in 1913 the operators added a screen out in the surf and projected silent films onto it so beachgoers could watch movies while wading. Lumina ra...

Image: Dalton Jackson | CC BY-SA 4.0

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina: Piers, Hurricanes, and Concrete

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DiscoA340, CC BY-SA 4.0. Johnnie Mercer's Pier began life in 1937 as the Ocean View Pier, the third pier built in North Carolina. Johnnie Mercer bought it in 1939 and gave it his name. Hurricanes Hazel in 1954, Connie in 1955, Bertha and Fran in 1996 hammered it in turn; the damage from Fran was bad enou...

Image: DiscoA340 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina: The Storms Keep Coming

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2BKNIGHT, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wrightsville Beach has been hit by hurricanes more or less continually since the town existed. Two devastating storms made landfall in 1899 alone - the August 17 storm at Hatteras, and a second on November 1 that destroyed cottages, damaged the train trestle, and required the com...

Image: 2BKNIGHT | CC BY-SA 4.0