Opened in 1988 in Fayetteville, this complex presents the history and cultural heritage of southern North Carolina through a main museum, the 1897 Poe House, and Arsenal Park. Its exhibits follow the region from Native Americans and European explorers through settlement, slavery, the Civil War, transportation, and local industries such as textiles and naval stores, while also showing everyday life through natural history, folk pottery, and an early 20th-century general store. The Poe House interprets late Victorian life and broader social and family change. Arsenal Park preserves remains of the Fayetteville Confederate arsenal destroyed in March 1865 by General William T. Sherman’s army.