Goose Creek State Park preserves 1,672 acres of estuarine landscape on North Carolina’s Coastal Plain near Pamlico Sound, with marshes, creeks, swamps, and forest that support rich coastal ecology and year-round recreation. The area was first inhabited by the Secota and Pamlico, whose communities were shattered by disease and later by the Tuscarora War. It also sheltered pirates such as Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet before the surrounding land was heavily logged and used for fishing and subsistence farming. Local preservation efforts led North Carolina to buy land from Weyerhauser, opening the park in 1974; its natural area became a National Natural Landmark in 1980.