(Map of the First 100 Lots)

Here on a small bluff overlooking the Cape Fear River, Joshua Potts in 1790 envisioned a town surrounding old Fort Johnston. “Braced up by the effects of the salubrious breeze, from the sea,” Joshua Potts laid out the first hundred lots, which were incorporated as the town of Smithville, later to become Southport, in November 1792.

Southport, North Carolina · United States