Fort Macon Coast Guard Station

In 1903, the US War Department approved a request from the US Treasury Department to establish a US Life-Saving Service station on the Fort Macon Military Reservation, and in 1904 a wood frame hip-roofed station house and a boathouse were built on Cowpen Creek beside the old fort as the Fort Macon Life-Saving Station. Over the next eleven years, the station’s personnel assisted mariners in distress, helped refloat stranded vessels, and towed in disabled vessels. A keeper led the station with six or more surfmen who formed the boat crews, using surf-boats and lifeboats powered by oars or sails, which beginning in the early 1900s were eventually replaced by motor-powered boats. In 1915, the US Life-Saving Service merged with the US Revenue Cutter Service to form the US Coast Guard, and the station became Fort Macon Coast Guard Station, Number 191. In 1924, the Fort Macon Military Reservation was given to the State of North Carolina by congressional act to become Fort Mason State Park, but the 22.6-acre tract occupied by the station was retained by the US Government for Coast Guard use, and the station still stands on that tract within Fort Macon State Park. During the rest of the 20th century, the station expanded as Coast Guard responsibilities changed, with a new station house, boathouse, and other facilities added in 1938, concrete docks added during World War II, engineer shops added in 1948, the station houses replaced by a modern 70-man barracks building in 1965, and the barracks renovated with new support facilities added in the early 1990s.

North Carolina · United States