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Missiles and More Museum
Located in Topsail Beach is the Missiles and More Museum, which houses a large seashell collection, World War II artifacts from Camp Davis and exhibits related to local pirate lore, flora and fauna and, of course, lots of displays and information about Operation Bumblebee, which was the beginning of the space program in the United States.
Speaking of Operation Bumblebee, this secret project is the reason for the somewhat strange looking buildings on the island as illustrated on this page; they were concrete observation towers for the monitoring of rocket launches. There was an arsenal on the sound side of the island for the assembly and storage of rockets and there were launching pads on the oceanfront.
More than 200 rocket launchings took place between 1946 and 1948, proving the feasibility of ramjet engines that could propel aircraft beyond the speed of sound. The Missiles and More Museum is located in the original arsenal building where models of the rockets are on display and videos of launchings during that time are shown. A recent addition to the museum is an exhibit on WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) who served at Camp Davis during World War II.