Napatree Point

Napatree Point is a narrow sandy spit at Watch Hill in southwestern Rhode Island that forms a protected harbor with Little Narragansett Bay and marks the state's southernmost and westernmost mainland point. Shaped by longshore drift and glacial moraine, it was once larger and wooded, but the Great September Gale of 1815 and especially the Hurricane of 1938 drastically remade it, destroying homes, cutting off Sandy Point, and causing deaths and erosion. The site also held Fort Mansfield, a short-lived coastal artillery post active from 1901 to 1909. Today it is a public beach and wildlife preserve valued for its distinctive coastal landscape and habitat protection.

Pawcatuck, Connecticut · United States