Greetings from Lewes: former postcard purveyor puts stamp on retirement

Kevin Moore is as local as it gets.

He was born at Beebe Hospital and grew up in the beach block of Rehoboth Avenue, in a house that is now Tiki Jac’s Street Eats & Brews.

“After Labor Day, there was nobody here. I used to throw a football with my friends across Rehoboth Avenue because there was no traffic,” he said.

He attended Rehoboth High School and was in the first graduating class of Cape Henlopen High School in 1970. He was the editor of the Viking Ventures school newspaper during his senior year.

Moore’s family roots in Rehoboth Beach go back more than a century. His grandfather, Ralph Wingate, was elected mayor of Rehoboth Beach in 1927. He died before Moore was born. 

“My grandmother was left with five children under 16. She kept the family together, worked in real estate, insurance and worked for Col. Corkran at Fort Miles. My mother grew up in the same house I grew up in,” he said.

Moore’s father was in the Coast Guard, stationed at Indian River Inlet. He later became manager of the Suburban Propane office that was located near the Rehoboth Beach drawbridge.

Moore’s uncle, Jay Wingate, served three terms as a state representative.

Moore worked as the campaign manager for Rep. John Schroeder, who served the then-37th District in Rehoboth Beach.

Moore has been a member of the Lewes Historical Society board, the city’s historic preservation commission and the Rehoboth-Dewey Chamber of Commerce board.

Despite that extensive local legacy, people might not know Kevin Moore by name. But people all over the world might have received Moore’s photos in their mailboxes.

Moore owned Marketplace Merchandising, which produced postcards, calendars and other items, all with Moore’s photography.

If a tourist sent a postcard from a Delaware beach resort town, chances are it was a Kevin Moore photo on the front.

“I bought the company in 1978 from Paul Rodgers, who started Jolly Trolley. He was covering the Delaware beaches, and I got into the Ocean City and Chincoteague markets,” Moore said. 

Growing up steps from the beach meant Moore had a front-row seat for all things at the coast.

“The first photos I remember taking were of the Storm of 1962. I would have been 9 years old,” he said.

Moore became a professional photographer after he bought the postcard company.

“Lifeguards were always my bestsellers, but it depended on the buyer. Some people wanted aerials, some beach and Boardwalk, others more generic scenes,” Moore said.

Moore’s photos were also featured in the annual Delaware Seashore calendar.

“I sold the rights to Lee Ann Wilkinson years ago. I still facilitate the publishing. It’s more of a community project, where I sit down with her staff and choose the photos, but they’re not my photos,” Moore said.

Moore wrote and self-published coffee table books on local artists Howard Schroeder and Jack Lewis, and on Chincoteague Island ponies.  

When the City of Lewes celebrated its 375th birthday in 2006, Moore got in on the party with a book showcasing the First Town in the First State.

He published “Lewes, Delaware: Celebrating 375 Years of History,” also a coffee table book.

“It’s not something I had in my mind for years. I realized nobody was doing a book, anything highbrow, everything was on a smaller scale,” he said.

Moore said he finished the book in four to five months. 

“Hard to believe I pulled it off,” he said.

He was able to get the Lewes Historic Society, now Historic Lewes, to officially endorse the book. The first 1,000 copies were signed and numbered, and sold exclusively to benefit LHS.

The book is full of Moore’s photos and historic images. He wrote the captions. Hazel Brittingham, the noted Lewes historian, wrote a passage.

Moore said the book wasn’t just about pictures, but also about the story of Lewes.

“I wanted someone to pick it up and get a thumbnail sketch of what the history was, architecture was, the scenery that made Lewes so special,” he said.

Moore said he is not planning to write another book for the Lewes 250 celebration in 2026 or for the city’s 400th anniversary in 2031. 

“Never say never,” he said.

Moore sold the postcard company in 2007, and joined his wife, Marion, in retirement.

They have lived in Lewes since 1983. 

“There were few stores left on Second Street in 1983. You could have shot a cannon down the street and not hit anyone,” he said.

From their home in the Lewes Historic District, the Moores have had another front-row seat, this time to the rebirth of the city.

“Little by little, we’ve been discovered by tourists and retirees. It’s hard to find somebody in your travels that hasn’t heard of Lewes,” he said.

Moore’s 200-year-old house is named Magnolia Hill, after the large magnolia trees on the property.

“Every house should have a name,” Moore said. “Our other house on Cape Cod is called Wash Ashore Cottage.”

Moore said one past owner of the Lewes house has an unusual claim to fame.

“Dr. Jacob Wolfe lived here for years. He was killed by a lightning strike in the Sussex County Courthouse,” he said.

Inside, the house has been updated many times over the decades, but still maintains a colonial feel. Moore’s extensive map collection lines the walls and stairwells. 

“They all have to have Lewes on them,” he said.

Many of his maps have been exhibited at the Lewes History Museum. His oldest map dates to the 1730s, drawn by Joshua Fisher.

“He was the first person to chart the Delaware Bay. Somehow, he was a hat maker who became a chart maker. It was used by mariners for 50 years,” Moore said.

Fisher owned the land where the Fisher-Martin house sat in Cool Spring, before it was moved to Zwaanendael Park in Lewes.

The library is lined with a collection of globes, spheres of all shapes and sizes.

In retirement, Moore has found a new subject for his camera: birds.

“I only knew the 20 to 25 birds that everybody knows,” he said. “We were sitting with friends and they suggested I get into birding, so I bought a little pair of binoculars, and little by little I got into it.”

Moore is a member of the Sussex Bird Club and is a regular at Prime Hook and other birding locations in the area.

This winter, Moore will make his seventh trip to Mexico for bird photos.

“I want to experience maybe just one species, go out to Nebraska and see the sandhill cranes some winter,” Moore said of a future bucket-list trip.

His travels may take him far and wide, but, like his maps, all roads come back to Lewes.

“We have beautiful birds, beaches, sunrises and sunsets,” he said. “When you’re looking out at the bay from the end of Savannah Road, you realize what you like about being here. It doesn’t get much better than that.”