Most of Kure Beach was built recently: 0.7% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1996. Below: 6 old photos and papers, maps from 1970 on, and the census since 1950.
Founding year: the first Kure Beach post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Kure Beach’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Kure Beach is more historic than 3% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
D−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Kure Beach’s overall grade.
North Carolina towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical North Carolina town has 12.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Kure Beach’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (19% of North Carolina towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D− to D. The pre-1940 share (±1.2 points) is firm at this size. The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
A post office called Kure Beach has been in operation since 1942. The town was named for a family of settlers.
The Kure Beach Fishing Pier is one of the oldest on the Atlantic Coast. The original pier was built in 1923 and has been rebuilt and restored several times since then due to wear and tear over the years.
On the night of July 24–25, 1943, a German U-boat fired at least three shells to attack the Ethyl-Dow Chemical Company plant at Kure's Beach (post-war: Kure Beach), but instead hit the Cape Fear River. The plant was the only one on the East Coast producing bromine from seawater for use in aviation gasoline.
The Kure Beach post office opened in 1942, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Kure Beach rank for history?
Kure Beach is more historic than 3% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Kure Beach?
0.7% of Kure Beach’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.2 points), against a typical 4.1% for a North Carolina town; the median home was built in 1996.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (18), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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