The Dram Tree sculpture

Wilmington, North Carolina, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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The Dram Tree is a 23-foot Corten and stainless steel sculpture by Wilmington artist Dumay Gorham, installed in 2013 on the Riverwalk beside the Wilmington Convention Center, North Carolina. It recalls a Cape Fear River cypress that stood until the 1940s.

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The Dram Tree sculpture

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Site-level location · 34.2364° N, 77.9491° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Sailors once drank a toast to a cypress standing out in the Cape Fear River; a steel version of that tree now stands beside Wilmington's Riverwalk.

The original tree grew in the river near where the Port of Wilmington is today, about two miles south of downtown, the StarNews reported in 2024. It stood as much as 75 feet from the bank, and some accounts date it to the early 1700s. The StarNews says a dredging crew accidentally tore it down in the 1940s; the Cape Fear Museum notes there are several versions of how it fell. Sailors took a "dram" on sighting it, which the visitor bureau says marked a safe arrival or good luck on departure.

The name lives on elsewhere. On 15 July 1989, the Cape Fear Museum records, the city dedicated a new Dram Tree at the small park at the foot of Castle Street. That is a separate site from the sculpture.

The steel Dram Tree was installed in November 2013, Exhibit City News reported, at the end of a nearly two-year project to place nautical art in the Convention Center. A committee of artists and local professors chose Gorham, a Wilmington native and metal sculptor, who worked from images of the original tree. The design has a stainless steel trunk opening into branches tipped with rust-coloured Corten steel leaves on a concrete base, and Exhibit City News gives the height as 23 feet; the visitor bureau agrees.

From the Convention Center grounds, the visitor bureau points walkers east along the Riverwalk to Gorham's Pelican sculpture at Port City Marina.

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A metal sculpture on the Convention Center grounds beside the Riverwalk. Wilmington and Beaches lists it among Dumay Gorham's outdoor works along the Riverwalk, with his Pelican sculpture further east near Port City Marina.

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On the grounds of the Wilmington Convention Center, 515 Nutt Street, Wilmington, beside the Riverwalk. The Wilmington and Beaches visitor guide lists it there (page last modified March 2025), and the StarNews described it on the Riverwalk in March 2024.

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Southern Hospitality giant Venus flytrap

Wilmington, North Carolina

'Southern Hospitality' is a Venus flytrap sculpture of steel and colored fused glass by Wilmington sculptor Paul Hill, who worked with artist Stan Harmon, according to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (2011). A 2021 visitor guide described it as a 15-foot-high sculpture, and a 2024 Wilmington and Beaches visitor guide placed it on the Riverwalk near Market and Water streets. NC State says wild Venus flytraps occur naturally only within about 75 miles of Wilmington.

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