page_title: Coast Guard Station Oak Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Coast Guard Station Oak Island / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial photo of Oak island Coast Guard Station Dock
context_page_description: Coast Guard Station Oak Island referred to locally as the Oak Island Coast Guard Station is located in the Town of Caswell Beach on Oak Island in Brunswick County, North Carolina. A part of the Cape Fear region, the station is in the United States Coast Guard 5th District which is charged with ensuring the safety and security of the oceans, coastal areas, and marine transportation system within the Mid-Atlantic Region. The district encompasses some 156,000 square miles of ocean, bays, rivers, wetlands and tidal marshes, geographic waterways, several major mid-Atlantic ports, and the Nation’s capital. They also patrol the mouth of the Cape Fear River in Southport, North Carolina and the Intercoastal Waterway
context_section_description: In the early 1800s, in recognition of the dangers to navigation caused by Frying Pan Shoals, Jay Bird Shoals, and Bald Head Shoals which lay south and southeast of Cape Fear, construction of a series of lighthouses and life saving stations in the area began. In 1888 the War Department designated a portion of Fort Caswell on the east end of Oak Island for use a life-saving station.  Although it still owned the land, it gave the Treasury Department permission to occupy the beach in front of the fort to construct what would turn out to be the Oak Island Life Saving Station. Completed in 1889, this building was sold to a private owner in 1938 and is now a residence sitting across from the existing station’s main gate.  
   
   Eventually the Treasury Department  acquired 57.2 acres of Fort Caswell by an act of Congress and in the late 1930s built the Oak Island Coast Guard Station.  Then in May 1958, the Oak Island Lighthouse immediately west of the Coast Guard Station became operational. In 1992, a 10,000 square foot headquarters/barracks building was built next to the lighthouse but accidentally burned to the ground in  February 2002; it was quickly replaced  by the present structure which was commissioned in July 2004. That same year, the lighthouse which had already been designated as surplus property, was deeded to Town of Caswell Beach by the Federal Government along with its adjacent oceanfront property.  The transfer agreement requires the town to maintain the property with the Coast Guard continuing to be responsible for operating the beacon.
caption: OICGS Dock Area
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