Swansboro Historic District (Additional Documentation)

Swansboro's historic district takes in most of the old center of a small port town at the mouth of the White Oak River in Onslow County. Its 123 resources are mostly houses and stores, and 77 of them contribute to the district's character. Most contributing buildings are one- and two-story frame structures from about 1890 to 1925, the years of the town's lumber boom, with a scattering of earlier ones. Five antebellum houses survive, including the Peter Ringware House, built about 1778 and possibly the oldest house in the county. Lumber-era houses, mostly I-houses, share ornament made from stock moldings produced at local mills, giving the town a look distinct from the rest of the county. Front Street's stores are almost all frame, unlike the brick downtowns of Jacksonville and Richlands, and the 1839 Ferrand Store is the county's only surviving nineteenth-century brick building. The district was recognized for its architecture, commerce and industry between 1770 and 1938.