Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune

By: Stratton C. Murrell and Jean Murrell

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Synopsis: Located near the North Carolina coast on the New River, Jacksonville is home to the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. From the beginning, the people of Jacksonville have faced challenges brought on by the winds of nature and the winds of war in a poised and dignified manner, turning hardships to the betterment of the community. Such changes have encouraged population and tourist growth, as well as physical expansion of the city, thus creating a booming area that still manages to maintain the charm and hospitality of a small Southern town. Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune revisits the era when Jacksonville was just a fledgling community, when tobacco barns and warehouses dotted the landscape and ferries and fishing boats forged the New River. The townspeople looked to agriculture, shipping, naval stores, lumbering, hunting, fishing, and political involvement to occupy their interests and energies, while hurricanes and wars loomed in the world beyond. Few people in those times could have imagined that a hurricane would make Jacksonville the county seat of Onslow County or that the world at war would result in the population expansion of the 1940s and the 1950s. With the building of the Marine base, which brought about enormous social change for the residents, the city attracted construction workers, young families, and service men and women who paved the way for today's "rural metropolis."