Several outcroppings of coquina rock are located just north of The Riggings condominiun complex in Kure Beach. (StarNews file photo)
According to the Army Corps of Engineers’ Wilmington District history book, the coquina rock was mined in the 1920s. The text says:
“The New Hanover County Commission permitted a contractor to remove the coquina for use in completing a section of U.S. Highway 421. The contractor took it from a strip 50 to 1,000 feet wide for a considerable length of the beach, borrowing approximately 6,000 cubic yards of the material. The excavation of the coquina coincided with the reversal in the erosion cycle that occurred around 1926.”
The staff at the Fort Fisher Historic Site said the rock was mined from the ocean, not the land.
Date posted: November 10, 2011
User-contributed question by:
Peter Meyer
