The History of Topsail Island: WWII, Pirates, and 26 Miles of Coast

Locals will tell you the island got its name from Caribbean pirates (Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, and others) who used the deep cuts behind the island as a hideout in the early 1700s. Merchant ships passing offshore would see only the topsails of the hidden pirate ships poking above the dunes, then watch their cargo disappear. Whether the story is literally accurate or not (historians debate the timeline), it's the one locals tell, and "Topsail" stuck.

The island appears in colonial records as Topsail Inlet by the late 1700s. Before European settlement, indigenous peoples of the Cape Fear region fished the sound and harvested oysters here for centuries.

World War II reshaped Topsail more than any other event in its history. In 1942, the U.S. Army established Camp Davis just inland. It was a large antiaircraft artillery training base that brought tens of thousands of troops to the area. The beach itself became a live-fire range. Local families were displaced. The island that had been a quiet summer escape for Onslow County families became a closed military zone.

When the war ended, the Navy moved in.

Starting in 1946, the U.S. Navy ran Operation Bumblebee on Topsail. A classified missile testing program that became central to America's early Navy missile development. Engineers built launch facilities at the south end of the island and a chain of concrete observation towers up the beach to track missiles in flight.

The program ended in 1948 when testing moved to a larger facility in Maryland, but the towers stayed. Several are still standing along the beach today, slowly being claimed by storms and shifting sand. A few have been converted into private homes. The original assembly building in Topsail Beach now houses the Missiles and More Museum, the best place to see original launch records, missile fragments, and equipment from the program.

Driving the length of the island, the towers are easy to spot. They look almost industrial, three stories tall, with narrow observation slits. They're scattered along the beach roughly every mile. Some are public landmarks, some are private property, some are visibly eroding into the ocean.

They're the most visible reminder that Topsail Island was, for a brief stretch in the late 1940s, central to America's early Navy missile work.

In the late 1980s, Karen Beasley, a retired teacher, started rescuing injured sea turtles she found on the beach. She had no formal training, no facility, no funding. After her death, her sister Jean and a group of local volunteers carried the work forward, eventually building a permanent hospital.

The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, now in Surf City, has treated thousands of turtles and become one of the most respected sea turtle hospitals on the East Coast. Visiting is one of the more distinctive Topsail experiences you can have.

You can't talk about Topsail without talking about hurricanes. Hazel in 1954, Bertha and Fran in 1996 (two months apart, both direct hits), Floyd in 1999, and Florence in 2018 each reshaped the island in some way. Florence in particular flattened businesses, washed out roads, and put much of the island underwater for days.

Almost everything you see on Topsail today has been rebuilt or repaired in someone's living memory. Locals talk about "before Florence" and "after Florence" the way other places talk about dividing lines.

The island is divided into three incorporated towns: North Topsail Beach (the north third), Surf City (the middle), and Topsail Beach (the south third). Each has its own town hall, beach access rules, and personality. We wrote a separate guide on how to choose between them if you're deciding where to stay.

The Missiles and More Museum in Topsail Beach is the best place to learn about Operation Bumblebee and the island's WWII era. It's free, run by volunteers who can answer almost any question, and located in the actual original missile assembly building.

The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital in Surf City offers tours during the season and explains the ongoing turtle conservation work that has become part of the island's identity.

The Onslow County Museum (just inland) has broader regional history.