Wallis Sands State Beach in Rye is about five miles south of Portsmouth and about nine miles northeast of the New Hampshire - Massachusetts state line.

The project involved widening the northernmost 800 feet of the beach to a general width of 150 feet by the direct placement of sand, and constructing a 350-foot-long stone groin at the beach widening’s southern limit. The work was completed in 1963 at a cost of $501,000.

The beach and groin were seriously damaged by a storm in February 1972, when much of the New Hampshire coastline was declared a National Disaster Area. The Corps completed a restoration of the beach in September 1973 at a cost of $95,000.