NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1969 SESSION

CHAPTER 1291

HOUSE BILL 511

AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION OF A MUSEUM-VISITOR CENTER FOR THE CONFEDERATE GUNBOAT C.S.S. NEUSE.

WHEREAS, the C.S.S. Neuse was built about twenty miles west of Kinston on the Neuse River in 1861 and later moved to Kinston where it was sunk in 1865; and

WHEREAS, the C.S.S. Neuse has been removed from the Neuse River and placed on State property at the Governor Richard Caswell Memorial Site just west of the City of Kinston for public exhibition and permanent preservation; and

WHEREAS, the City of Kinston and the County of Lenoir have each allocated $13,500.00 for this project; and

WHEREAS, The Richardson Foundation has allocated $7,000.00 for this project; and

WHEREAS, the General Assembly of North Carolina has allocated $90,000.00 for this project; and

WHEREAS, there was allocated $10,000.00 in 1964 from the Governor's Contingency and Emergency fund for this project; and

WHEREAS, there is now available approximately $26,000.00 left after the cost of construction of a suitable protective building over the Gunboat; and

WHEREAS, a Museum-Visitor Center is needed in order to display a large collection of artifacts taken from the C.S.S. Neuse hull during salvage operation; and

WHEREAS, appropriations previously made for the purposes cited above has proved insufficient;

NOW, THEREFORE,

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

Section 1.  In order to construct a Museum-Visitor Center to display the artifacts recovered from the C.S.S. Neuse the sum of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000.00) is hereby appropriated from the General Fund of the State to the State Department of Archives and History.

Sec. 2.  All laws and clauses of laws in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.

Sec. 3.  This Act shall be in full force and effect upon its ratification.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 2nd day of July, 1969.