Museum of the Cape Fear

While it is a small museum, add the Pope House tour and a quick walk over to the Arsenal site, and you can easily spend a couple of hours learning about the history of the Fayetteville area.
I think the place rates 4 stars for the knowledgable and friendly staff and the attention to detail to what displays they have.
Of course, the price is right (free!) but they do take donations. If you do just the museum, you will like spend less than an hour there… even reading every sign. The Pope House tour is a must as it is beautifully restored and preserved and the guide seems to know every detail of the Pope family and house’s history.
If you decide to visit this place, I recommend you add the Cape Fear Botanical Garden tour. It is only about 15 minutes away and will help you round out the morning or afternoon.

Great little museum but a whole lot more for free. The Trifecta is the 2 story museum with info from the early prehistoric years until present through the Revolutionary War and Civil War.
The Poe house (the OTHER E. A. Poe) is a good little tour of a victorian mansion for the upper middle class of the day. Take the docent tour, it is worth it.
Finally the Arsenal is a park with remnants of what Gen. Sherman left behind. The ”ghost” tower is cool.

This is an ok museum. The exhibits are much smaller than what the size of the building leads you to believe, but it makes up for it by changing the exhibits on a regular basis. The regular exhibit displays the history of the area and what life was like throughout. The other parts — the arsenal and the Poe House — are part of the museum grounds and help elevate the entire complex into a nice stop if you’re looking for a educational retrospective. There’s a lot of history in the area and the museum of the cape fear finds a way to bring snapshots of it into one spot. And best of all, it’s all free — supported by donations. I understood from the staff its on the list of places to close as part of the state budget fix. That would be a shame.