"North Carolina" was decommissioned in Bayonne, New Jersey on 27 June 1947; she remained in the reserve fleet in until 1 June 1960, when she was from the Naval Vessel Register. Instead of the scrapping that faced most of the United States' battleships, "North Carolina" was sold to the state of North Carolina for $250,000 on 8 August 1961 to be a museum ship. She was dedicated in Wilmington on 29 April 1962 as a memorial to the citizens of the state who died in the Second World War. Listed on the United States' National Register of Historic Places and designated as a National Historic Landmark on 1 January 1986, she remains there today, maintained by the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission.