Ocean City Homes for Sale | North Topsail Beach

Ocean City is the most historically significant address on Topsail Island, and it is worth understanding before you scroll past it in North Topsail Beach listings. It was founded in 1949 by Ocean City Developers, Inc., an inter-racial corporation whose principals included the Wilmington attorney and former mayor Edgar Yow along with Wade Chestnut and siblings Bertram, Robert, and Louise Chestnut Thompson. It is recognized as the first beach community in North Carolina where Black residents could own property.

The community built its own institutions. St. Mark's Episcopal Chapel went up in June 1957 and was later renamed the Wade H. Chestnut Memorial Chapel; it served Camp Oceanside, established in 1955 as the first Episcopal camp for Black youth in the Diocese of East Carolina. The fishing pier built in 1958 was the only ocean pier on the South Atlantic coast open to Black patrons.

Ocean City became part of North Topsail Beach when the town incorporated in 1990, and Hurricane Fran took houses here in 1996 that were never rebuilt, so inventory is genuinely limited. The community is recognized on the Jacksonville-Onslow African American Heritage Trail and the North Carolina Civil Rights Trail, and the town installed commemorative street signs in 2012. Descendants of the founding families still own property here.

Ocean City Listings