Station Fort Macon, North Carolina

Station Fort Macon, North Carolina

Coast Guard Station #191

Remarks:

In 1904, the Treasury Department received permission from the War Department to build a lifesaving station on the Fort Macon Military Reservation. The Lifesaving Service, an organization later combined with the Lighthouse Service to form the Coast Guard as it is known today, started here in Atlantic Beach, NC with one main building, two small shortage sheds and water supply facilities. When the War Department gave up this installation in 1924, by Act of Congress, the Treasury Department received 22.6 acres of land for the lifesaving station and the remainder was given to the State of North Carolina (the area now known as the Fort Macon State Park, with Fort and beach front area).

In 1938, many improvements were made to the station, with construction of a larger main building with watch tower, a boathouse with attached marine railway, equipment building and other associated utilities. Of these, the boathouse (less railway) and the equipment building (Fort Macon Aids to Navigation Team Building) are still in service.

The dock area was built by the Army in 1941 after the start of World War TI but was then turned over to the Coast Guard after the war in January 1946. These docks were improved in 1946/47, with the engineering building being constructed in 1948 and the actual designation of this unit as a Coast Guard Base following shortly afterwards. Again, the "L" shaped structure near the Base docks is the original building used for the Engineering support for the Base. At that time, it included reworking of buoys, a function no longer performed locally. In 1963, a concrete dock was constructed for the Cutter Chilula at the end of the Base grounds. The construction was completed in l965.

Finally, the Lifesaving Station and the Base were combined organizationally into a Station in 1963, then changed back to a Base in 1965, and finally the formation of a Group Office was attached to the Base to coordinate other local North Carolina units. The old station house and main building were replaced by the current 7O—man barracks in 1965 and these structures were removed.

COAST GUARD BASE FORT MACON TODAY

Base Fort Macon still occupies the same area of land it started on in 1904, with many of the older buildings still finding use today. The Base serves as a host for 6 other commands which are co—located within its fence, these being the Group Ft. Macon Office, ANT Ft. Macon, CGC Primrose, CGC Conifer, CGC Chilula, and Reserve Base Ft. Macon. While each has its own Commanding Officer, the Base and ANT Ft. Macon (Aids to Navigation Team) are attached to the Group Office. Its responsibilities extend from Hobucken, NC to the north, to the NC/SC border to the south.

Base and Group Fort Macon has many missions it is required to perform, from maintaining a constant ready status to aid the mariner in distress to keeping the various navigational markers in working order. With these comes the responsibility to enforce Federal Laws covering boating safety to drug interdiction. Many hours of training and work goes into these areas so as to be ready when the need arises.

Some of these same missions are also shared with the various boats moored at the Base. The CGC Chilula, a 205 foot CC medium endurance cutter, stands ready to assist vessels in distress as well as a law enforcement vessel. The CGC Conifer, a 180 foot buoy tender, is primarily concerned with the maintenance and correction of aids to navigation discrepancies with large navigation buoys, similar to those setting near her on the dock. The CCC Primrose is a 100 foot construction tender. Her job is to not only work small inland buoys, but to construct day beacons, ranges and other aids to navigation with the many pilings which lay nearby. She does this with the pile driver located on the bow. Finally, the 55 foot boat moored at the southeast corner of the boat basin sets up small temporary aids while others are being replaced, keeps the daybeacons running by re— placing batteries and other types of routine maintenance for navigational aids. At times this same boat has been called upon to perform search and rescue missions, which she does extremely well due to her crane, long endurance and sleeping and eating facilities built on board.

Keepers:

David M. Pugh  was appointed keeper on 17 SEP 1904 and was still serving in 1915.

Sources:

Station History File, CG Historian’s Office

Dennis L. Noble & Michael S. Raynes.  “Register of the Stations and Keepers of the U.S. Life-Saving Service.”  Unpublished manuscript, compiled circa 1977, CG Historian’s Office collection.

Ralph Shanks, Wick York & Lisa Woo Shanks.  The U.S. Life-Saving Service: Heroes, Rescues and Architecture of the Early Coast Guard.  Petaluma, CA: Costaño Books, 1996.

U.S. Treasury Department: Coast Guard.  Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers and Cadets and Ships and Stations of the United States Coast Guard, July 1, 1941.  Washington, DC: USGPO, 1941.