History with ‘Hud’: Early look inside new Fort Fisher Visitor Center
NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — More than seven years after plans for a new visitor center at Fort Fisher were presented to the public, work on the multi-million dollar building is nearing completion.
The visitor center is scheduled to open September 27, but we recently got an early look inside. (UPDATE: Due to flooding in the area from Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, the building will not open as scheduled.)
The old visitor center, which had stood on the historic grounds since 1965, has been demolished, with a much larger structure taking its place next door.
Work on the new visitor center began in October of 2022, with the goal of providing a better experience to the more than one million people who walk the ground annually.
Fort Fisher assistant site manager Chad Jefferds says it’s been a long road getting to this point.
“Between exhibit development, getting the ground ready, getting plans approved, all of that – we’ve really gotten a lot of work done in what seems like a short time, but it has taken a little while,” Jefferds said.
The new visitor center is nearly four times larger than the old one.
A full time staff of eight is housed on the ground floor of the two-story structure, with the exhibit hall being on the second level.
The exhibits are laid out chronologically, beginning before the fort with the Native Americans who lived here, and travelling through time to when the site was a World War Two camp.
Jefferds says a lot of thought went into the organization of the hundreds of pieces of local history.
“The theme of the exhibits is ‘Fort Fisher Through Their Eyes’. So we’ve tried to being in that human element,” Jefferds pointed out. “The different perspectives of all the people who lived, worked, fought and died here.”
Jefferds feels visitors will now be presented a clearer picture of those who have called the grounds home over the centuries, thanks in part to a recreation of how the original fort once looked.
“The exhibits tell a more inclusive story, which is definitely great,” Jefferds said. “Also, behind me here, we’re going to have three new traverses. They’re not really news. They were here during the Civil War and during World War Two they were bulldozed, when the army created the airstrip through here.”
In the decades since the last people lived on the grounds, the site has seen major changes.
But Jefferds hopes the hard work they’ve put into the new visitor experience will allow people to leave feeling a greater knowledge for the importance of the site.
“I think being able to get up and kinda get a better view of the fort is going to create more of an appreciation for just how immense this place was,” Jefferds said. “Knowing only about a tenth of it is still here and it’s still massive out there.”
Once the visitor center is fully open to the public, it will take on the hours of the old center – Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Admission will remain free.
Meteorologist Matthew Huddleston (‘Hud’) has always had two major loves – weather and history. While you can watch him talk about weather each morning on WWAY, he looks forward to bringing you a little piece of history each Thursday on WWAY’s website.
To read other History with ‘Hud’ segments, click HERE.
