This photograph from 1925 shows the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse looking lonely and vulnerable on the edge of dunes near the point of Cape Henlopen. Within the next year, on April 13, 1926, its shallow foundations weakened by a spring storm, the lighthouse fell into the sea from where it had stood since 1769. 

The British constructed the lighthouse to mark the entrance to Delaware Bay, just a few years before the United States’ war for independence went into high gear. As part of the hostilities, the British, reportedly, almost completely destroyed the 69-foot-tall structure in 1777.

By 1784, with the war ended, wardens for the lighthouse had rebuilt the structure and put it back into service. It continued as one of the East Coast’s most valuable navigational markers for another 140 years until dune erosion rendered the structure unsafe. 

It was deactivated, replaced by an automated beacon, and then its fallen remains became a source of high-quality stone for local fireplaces and other structures over the next decade.