The Rehoboth Beach Museum’s exhibit Buckets of Fun: Sand Pails and Other Beach Toys is in its last weeks of display. To encourage visitors, the museum will offer two-for-one admission Saturday and Sunday, March 6 and 7, when visitors come to town for the Chocolate Festival.
The exhibit, which officially closes Sunday, March 14, features more than 100 vintage sand pails and a number of beach toys including sand sifters and wind-up boats, is scheduled to move on to another museum soon. Some of the pails are nearly 100 years old.
Decorations on the pails feature everything and everyone from Queen Mary and Mickey Mouse to cowboys and Indians, astronauts and circus clowns. Vintage bathing suits also fill the galleries with bright colors and belt buckles on the men’s suits, and bloomers and bathing caps for the women - all in the fabric of the times: wool.
The museum is the home of the Rehoboth Beach Historical Society. The society’s mission is to preserve and showcase artifacts that illustrate the development of the community. Society members receive free museum admission, newsletters, free admission to lectures and other activities, and notice of ticketed events.
The museum is in the former icehouse where ice that was cut from local lakes was stored in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Later, ice was manufactured there from the 1920s until the 1940s. The city bought the building in 1998 and entered into a partnership with the society to operate the museum, which opened to the public in 2007.
The main gallery includes displays on the history of the City of Rehoboth Beach. They tell the story of decades of having fun in the sun, from arcade games to fancy hotels.
The museum is located at 511 Rehoboth Ave., next to the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center and near the lighthouse on the traffic circle. Winter museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday, Thursday and Friday; and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday and Sunday.
Regular admission is $5 for adults; $3 for seniors, college students and military; $2 for children ages 13-17. Members and children 12 and under are free. Memberships are available; call 302-227-7310 for information.
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