50 Fun Facts About Wilmington NC

Wilmington sits on which North Carolina river?

The 191-mile blackwater river reaches the Atlantic just below the city; Wilmington's downtown riverwalk runs 1.75 miles along it.

Wilmington is the county seat of which county?

The 2020 census counted 115,451 residents in the city itself.

The city was named in 1739 for Spencer Compton, who held what title?

He was the 1st Earl of Wilmington; Colonel William Bartram, uncle of the naturalist, introduced the bill and named the town for his patron.

What is Wilmington's nickname?

It has been a seaport since colonial days and remains North Carolina's largest.

The Wilmington and Weldon, completed in 1840, held what world record?

At 161.5 miles it beat anything else on earth; it later became part of the Atlantic Coast Line and carried Confederate supplies in the war.

Wilmington was North Carolina's largest city until which city overtook it in 1910?

Toward the end of the 19th century it was the state's most populous city and a majority-Black one, which is central to the story of 1898.

The events of November 10, 1898, in Wilmington are described as the only what in United States history?

A mob of 2,000 white men overthrew the elected biracial Fusionist government and destroyed the state's only Black-owned daily newspaper.

How large was the mob that overthrew Wilmington's elected government in 1898?

At least 14 Black residents were killed and estimates run from 60 to more than 300; the city then had 11,324 Black and 8,731 white residents.

Fort Fisher, guarding the approach to Wilmington's port, was nicknamed the Southern what?

Built mostly of soil, it absorbed heavy bombardment; it fell on January 15, 1865, and the city itself on February 22.

Why was the fall of Wilmington in February 1865 so damaging to the Confederacy?

Blockade runners had kept Lee's Army of Northern Virginia supplied through the port; Braxton Bragg abandoned the city at 1 a.m. on the 22nd.

What was the nickname of the WWII battleship now a memorial across from downtown?

USS North Carolina (BB-55) earned 15 battle stars, more than any other US battleship in the war, and opened to visitors in April 1962.

How many main guns did the memorial battleship BB-55 carry?

Three triple turrets; she was the lead ship of her class of fast battleships, commissioned in April 1941 and made a National Historic Landmark in 1982.

How many ships did the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company build in Wilmington between 1941 and 1946?

Employment peaked at 21,000 in 1943; the first Liberty ship, SS Zebulon B. Vance, was launched hours before Pearl Harbor.

Which basketball legend grew up in Wilmington and was cut from his high school varsity as a sophomore?

He was 5 feet 11 at Laney High; he then hit the winning shot in the 1982 NCAA final and won six titles with the Bulls.

Which local high school did the future Bulls star attend?

Sonny Jurgensen, the Hall of Fame quarterback, went to New Hanover High a generation earlier.

Which Italian producer built Wilmington's film studio in 1984?

His DEG lot passed to Carolco, then EUE/Screen Gems in 1996, and to Cinespace in 2023; more than 300 productions have shot there.

Wilmington's Cinespace studio is described as the largest film and TV production facility where?

The city earned the nicknames 'Hollywood East' and 'Wilmywood'.

Stage 10 at the Wilmington studios, the third-largest US production stage when opened in 2009, is what size?

It is a columnless building; Iron Man 3 arrived to use it three years later.

Which teen drama, set in fictional Capeside, Massachusetts, was filmed in Wilmington from 1998 to 2003?

Kevin Williamson's show launched James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams to Paula Cole's 'I Don't Want to Wait'.

Which series about half-brothers on a high-school basketball team was filmed in Wilmington?

Mark Schwahn's show ran from 2003 to 2012 on The WB and then The CW; the River Court is a real spot on the river.

Which Marvel film began shooting at Wilmington's studios in May 2012?

It went on to gross more than $1.2 billion worldwide.

David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) used Wilmington's studio and streets to play which fictional town?

Dino De Laurentiis financed it; Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Hopper starred.

The North Carolina Azalea Festival has been held in Wilmington every April since which year?

Dr. W. Houston Moore's idea now draws about 300,000 people; Ronald Reagan emceed in 1959 and Andy Griffith came the year before.

Airlie Gardens, a 67-acre showpiece, was begun in 1886 by whom?

Sarah Green Jones laid it out; New Hanover County bought it in 1999 and its live oak, the Airlie Oak, is about 500 years old.

The Bellamy Mansion, built 1859-61 on Market Street, was used as what by Union forces in 1865?

Dr. John Bellamy's Greek Revival-Italianate house was raised by enslaved and free Black artisans; its restored slave quarters are among the few open to the public.

Thalian Hall, the 1858 theatre, shares its building with what municipal institution?

The Thalian Association's grant funded the attached opera house when the city built its new hall in the 1850s.

Which carnivorous plant is native only to a roughly 60-mile radius of Wilmington?

It became North Carolina's state carnivorous plant in 2005 and poaching one has been a felony since 2014.

What did North Carolina do in 2014 to protect its native carnivorous plant?

The trap fires only when two trigger hairs are touched within about 20 seconds, so raindrops do not fool it.

Hurricane Florence made landfall on September 14, 2018, just south of which town beside Wilmington?

All roads into Wilmington flooded and the city was cut off; the storm set a state rainfall record of 35.93 inches near Elizabethtown.

How much rain fell on Wilmington from Hurricane Florence over September 13-16, 2018?

Florence's crawl across the coast caused $24 billion in damage and 54 deaths.

UNC Wilmington's sports teams are known as what?

The school opened as Wilmington College in 1947, wears teal, and plays in the Coastal Athletic Association.

What is UNC Wilmington's official school colour?

Navy and gold are the alternates; the university enrolled 18,848 students in 2024 and runs a Center for Marine Science.

The Memorial Bridge carrying US 17 over the river at Wilmington, opened in 1969, is what type?

Its 408-foot span rises 135 feet to let ships reach the port; it carries US 17, 76 and 421.

The Lumina Pavilion, a 25,000-square-foot dance hall opened in 1905, stood in which seaside town?

A streetcar line carried Wilmingtonians out to it; Johnnie Mercer's Pier there was renamed for its new owner in 1939.

Which NBC anchor, co-host of a top-rated 1956-70 nightly news programme, was born in Wilmington in 1920?

He later hosted ABC's This Week with David Brinkley from 1981.

Which Wilmington-born QB won the 1969 NFL MVP as the league's first Filipino-American QB?

He starred at NC State before the Rams; fellow Wilmingtonian Sonny Jurgensen made the Hall of Fame with the Eagles and Redskins.

Which country fiddler, famous for 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia', was born in Wilmington in 1936?

The song reached number three in 1979 and won a Grammy; he entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

Roughly how many blocks does Wilmington's historic district cover?

The Cotton Exchange shops and the riverwalk sit within it; the climate is humid subtropical.

On which loaded date did Wilmington launch its first Liberty ship, SS Zebulon B. Vance?

The yard was organised by Newport News Shipbuilding executives three miles south of the city on the Cape Fear.

Which two seaside towns to the south round out Wilmington's coastline?

Kure Beach is home to the Fort Fisher historic site and the North Carolina Aquarium.

Wilmington is the eastern end of Interstate 40. Where does the freeway end, 2,554 miles to the west?

The road joins I-15 there, the gateway to Southern California. The I-40 extension to New Hanover County opened in 1990 and is credited with kick-starting the city's rapid growth.

On September 8, 2008, Wilmington became the first US TV market to do what?

The FCC used it as a test before the national analog shutoff. Officials flipped a giant switch marked 'First in Flight, First in Digital', two days after Tropical Storm Hanna came ashore nearby.

Actor Brandon Lee died in an accidental shooting while filming which 1994 movie in Wilmington?

Lee, son of Bruce Lee, was killed by a prop gun mishap on set. The film was completed with doubles and early digital effects and released the following year.

The deadly 1862 yellow fever outbreak in Wilmington was blamed on a blockade runner of what name?

Between 650 and 800 people died, a mortality rate of about 40 percent. Walter Reed only proved in 1900 that mosquitoes spread the disease.

Before the 1739 renaming, the settlement on the river had gradually taken on which name?

It had started as New Carthage, then New Liverpool. Colonel William Bartram, uncle of the naturalist, introduced the bill naming it for his patron the Earl of Wilmington.

Wilmington's busy film studios of the 1980s and 1990s earned the city which nickname?

The boom faded in 2014 when Governor Pat McCrory let the state's film incentives lapse and productions decamped to Atlanta. Filming rebounded in the early 2020s, with 2021 a record year.

In 2020 Wilmington became the first place in America to hold which designation?

The honour recognised the wartime shipyard and home front. The city's USO club hosted 35,000 uniformed visitors a week from 1941 to 1945.

Which oddly named independent film festival has been held in Wilmington every year since 1995?

A cucoloris is the perforated screen film crews use to throw patterned shadows. The festival's foundation also runs weekly screenings and a kids' film-making festival.

In 2003 Congress gave Wilmington which designation, shared by fewer than 30 US cities?

It was formerly the home port of the medium-endurance cutter USCGC Diligence. Fittingly, HMS Diligence was the ship that carried the hated stamps to the city in 1765.

Which future Red Sox All-Star catcher played for Wilmington's Port City Roosters in 1995 and 1996?

The city hosted minor league baseball on and off from 1900 to 2001, and the Philadelphia Phillies held spring training there in 1914.