Delaware Cape Region History in Photographs

Making Charcoal in Woods of Sussex near Millsboro

1 year ago

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, scenes like this one from November 1935 near Millsboro were...

Ice skating on a pond near Wyoming in 1909

1 year ago

Tuesday, Dec. 21 this year marks the winter solstice - with the year’s fewest hours of daylight and...

Santa’s special visit to Dover in 1941

1 year ago

Dover Air Force Base has been in the center of many important international events through its 80...

Boardwalk in early 1940s, before Dolle’s sign

1 year ago

With the pending removal of the iconic Dolle’s saltwater taffy sign from atop the building at the...

Flooding has long been transportation hazard

1 year ago

Delaware, it’s said, is a state with three counties at low tide and two counties at high. When...

Oysters long a popular food source, not just at...

1 year ago

This photograph from the 1950s shows men aboard an oystering vessel out of Leipsic planting seed...

Fisher-Martin House prior to its move to Lewes

1 year ago

Thomas Fisher built this Dutch Colonial-style home on 500-acre White Meadow Farm in the 1730s. It...

Rehoboth Bay and sparsely populated Dewey Beach in...

1 year ago

This picture postcard shows the head of Rehoboth Bay, in its northeastern corner, and the sandy...

A bird’s-eye view of Milton in March of 1970

1 year ago

This aerial photograph of Milton, looking from the southwest, shows the town as it appeared in...

Rehoboth Beach’s street layout as of 1950

1 year ago

Rehoboth Beach’s streets fan out left and right from where Rehoboth Avenue crosses Lewes-Rehoboth...

Rehoboth Beach’s Sisters Cottage In The Early 20th...

1 year ago

This picture postcard from Rehoboth Beach was mailed in 1908. It shows priests and nuns in front of...

Delaware-built rolling post offices helped deliver...

1 year ago

This United States Railway Post Office car was one of dozens built by the Jackson and Sharp Company...

Fall has long been apple-picking time in Delaware

1 year ago

But not in this photograph from July 22, 1925, showing wagons loaded with freshly picked apples...

Hauling pilings the old-fashioned way in 1907

1 year ago

This photo, which graces a postcard mailed in 1907, shows a team of oxen and mules driven by their...

A Sussex County public school classroom in 1926

1 year ago

With schools reopening in Sussex County, and new schools under construction in many different...

A soldier’s life isn’t all battle and glamour

1 year ago

This photograph from around 1944 shows U.S. Army soldiers, stationed at Fort Miles in Lewes,...

Delmar was one of the stops for the Delmarva Express

1 year ago

Pennsylvania Railroad invested heavily in passenger service during the first half of the 20th...

State-of-the-art food packaging in the early 1900s

1 year ago

This 1920s photograph from Waller Studios in western Sussex County’s Laurel shows workers at the...

Oak Orchard boardwalk scene from around 1915

1 year ago

Oak Orchard, tucked between Indian River Bay to the south and Emily Gut to the east, drew...

Horseshoe crabs at Bowers Beach for fertilizer

1 year ago

One of the great survivors of Planet Earth, horseshoe crabs have been roaming the sea floor for...

An early 20th century crossing of Broadkill River

1 year ago

Judging by the automobiles, this photo of the bridge over Broadkill River dates back to the 1930s...

Surfers at Indian River Inlet in the mid-1950s

1 year ago

This photograph from the middle of the 20th century gives a sense of the surfing scene at Indian...

Canning tomatoes in Seaford in early 1900s

1 year ago

Emanuel Greenabaum and brothers built a tomato and pea canning operation in Seaford in the late...

Resort restaurants long a part of local economy

1 year ago

Restaurants have long been an important part of the Delaware resort economy, and they have marketed...

Moonlight sailing on Rehoboth Bay in 1939

1 year ago

This romanticized illustration of a full moon sail on Rehoboth Bay graced a postcard that was...

One of Delaware’s earliest public transportation buses

1 year ago

Public buses are an increasingly important mode of transportation in Sussex County as our roads...

Threshing wheat when it took far more man and animal...

1 year ago

Wheat harvesting is in full swing across Delmarva. This photograph from the early 1930s shows a...

Hotel Carlton building on Rehoboth Avenue

1 year ago

This picture postcard from the 1920s shows the familiar red brick structure in the ocean block of...

Rehoboth’s Boardwalk was as popular in 1915 as it is...

1 year ago

The Boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach is usually capitalized because many properties fronting the...

Rehoboth Beach when its streets and beaches were...

1 year ago

This picture postcard from before 1907 shows the first block of Rehoboth’s Baltimore Avenue when...

Modern highway construction in Ellendale in 1918

1 year ago

Industrialist and philanthropist T. Coleman duPont financed construction of Rt. 113 in Sussex...

The first Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse lasted until 1925

1 year ago

This undated postcard photograph shows the first Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse at the southeast end...

Gov. Pete duPont during a visit to Millsboro’s NCR...

1 year ago

Delaware Gov. Pete duPont, who passed away recently after a long life of public service and...

Baseball game at Milton Colored School in 1952

1 year ago

This photograph from the spring of 1952 shows students and teachers at Milton Colored School...

One hundred years ago on the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal

1 year ago

Bill Heronemus sent along this photo, looking toward the northwest, of the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal in...

The lure of the beach continues, constant as the tides

1 year ago

The perennial simplicity, joy, and attractiveness of the beach, surf and waves are captured in this...

Cape Henlopen Lighthouse fell into the sea April 13,...

1 year ago

This photograph from 1925 shows the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse looking lonely and vulnerable on the...

Rehoboth had mass transportation once; maybe again?

1 year ago

Starting in about 1878, passenger train service began bringing summer tourists south from...

A friendly canal chat in Lewes in 1937

1 year ago

Bill Heronemus of Lewes sent along this old photo recently. He noted: “I believe it may have C.H...

A fashionable Rehoboth Beach Easter celebration in 1956

1 year ago

For many decades in the 20th century, Rehoboth Beach hosted a grand celebration of Easter and its...

Rehoboth Beach’s new sewage treatment plant in 1935

1 year ago

The Rehoboth Beach wastewater treatment plant was built in the farmland outside Rehoboth Beach in...

Green peas being planted now will be harvested in June

1 year ago

This photo from June of 1925 shows wagons heaped with green pea vines heading to hulling machinery...

Rehoboth Beach Post Office as it appeared in 1940

1 year ago

The United States Postal service has been in the news across the country recently. That timeliness...

Shad nets drying along the Delaware in early 1900s

1 year ago

This photo shows another form of net drying, different from the net reels used at one time by the...

Many Delaware eyes turn to Florida in February

1 year ago

Jackson and Sharp Company, according to an article in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, was an...

Community chimes in on last week’s photograph

1 year ago

The aerial picture published as the historic photo in the Feb. 9 edition of the Cape Gazette (...

A different era, a different time in Lewes

1 year ago

Few photographs provide a sense of the intensity of activity on the point of Cape Henlopen at Lewes...

Ploughing snow the old-fashioned way in 1921

1 year ago

While it’s been a relatively mild winter so far, there’s still plenty of time ahead for snow and...

What a Delaware football team looked like 118 years ago

2 years ago

It’s football time of year with NFL playoffs completed and Super Bowl LV on the horizon. The game...

Shipbuilding once flourished as a major Milton industry

2 years ago

This postcard from 1908 shows the riverfront in downtown Milton complete with at least two twin-...

A different brand of presidential inauguration...

2 years ago

Delaware and most other states in the nation joined in the festive parade on Jan. 21, 1957, when...

Aerial view of Rehoboth Beach showing rebuilt Dolle...

2 years ago

Last week’s historic photo showed damage from the March 1962 nor’easter that flattened the Dolle’s...

Storm of March 1962 destroyed the Dolle’s structure...

2 years ago

The infamous northeast storm of March 1962, with its strong winds and exceptionally high tides,...

A happy holiday message from a Delaware soldier in...

2 years ago

During the Vietnam war, Delaware Morning News journalist Nancy Lynch encouraged soldiers serving...

Delaware has seen tough winters in the past

2 years ago

Delaware is hardly known for its severe winters, but arctic conditions occasionally grip the state...

An inexpensive upstate winter getaway in mid-20th...

2 years ago

The Francis Drake Motel was located at the intersection of Routes 13 and 40, a few miles south of...

Christmas postcard from Beebe Hospital in 1928

2 years ago

With Christmas lights starting to show up throughout Delaware’s Cape Region, there’s no doubt that...

Farm at Carpenter’s Corner southeast of Lewes

2 years ago

This photograph from the late 1970s shows the farm buildings at Carpenter’s Corner southeast of...

Then as now, public health important in Delaware

2 years ago

At the Kent and Sussex Fair in Harrington in July 1932, the Delaware Board of Public Health set up...

Packing Sussex County apples for market in 1923

2 years ago

Almost all of Delaware’s 2020 apples have been picked, sold, stored and shipped as our unseasonably...