Oak Island is located on the Atlantic Ocean coast in Brunswick County, North Carolina near the South Carolina border. A barrier island, it contains the towns of Oak Island and Caswell Beach, Fort Caswell (since 1949 home to the North Carolina Baptist Assembly) and the Oak Island Coast Guard Station which is co-located with the Oak Island Lighthouse. Almost 13 miles long, the island averages about one mile wide. Approximately 7000 people live on it year-round, a number which can balloon to over 40,000 during the summer Geography Roughly 30 miles south of Wilmington, North Carolina, Oak Island is the easternmost of the South Brunswick Islands formed in the late 1930s by the construction of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Dredged from Southport, North Carolina at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, the ICW flows west through coastal sounds and marshes to the Little River in South Carolina. Both ends of Oak Island have extensive marshland, while its two major internal waterways (Davis Canal and Montgomery Slough) run east to west and drain into the Lockwood Folly River. Elevations range from sea level to a 50' high knoll on the west end of the island. History While Native Americans most likely used the island for fishing, the first permanent settlement took place in the 1830s on the island's east end at Fort Caswell. Now utilized as a Christian retreat and conference center, during the Civil War the fort defended Confederate positions on the North Carolina coast and subsequently served as an army training ground in World War I and a patrol/ communications base in World War II. In 2013, along with the Fort Caswell Rifle Range constructed during WWI, it was designated as a National Historic District. 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 the island, construction of a series of lighthouses and life saving stations in the area began. On Bald Head Island, this construction included Old Baldy completed in 1817, and on Oak Island, the 1889 Oak Island Life Saving Station located 1/2 mile west of Fort Caswell. Still standing today, this building features a large lookout tower projecting from its roof. In 1938 it was sold to a private owner and moved directly across the road from its original location near where the current lighthouse