Delaware Cape Region History in Photographs

Delaware Cape Region History in Photographs, published every Tuesday in the Cape Gazette, features historical photos from Delaware's Cape Region - particularly - and from throughout Sussex County and Delaware generally.

Readers are invited to submit photos of historic interest. They can be mailed to the Cape Gazette at PO Box 213, Lewes, DE 19958, or via email to newsroom@capegazette.com.

Sussex County Courthouse in 1924

3 years ago
The Sussex County Courthouse is one of Georgetown’s iconic historic structures. This photograph...

Lewes’ Fountain of Youth

3 years ago
If you’re searching for the Fountain of Youth, look no further than Lewes. It isn’t exactly a...

Rehoboth Beach Country Club’s original nine-hole layout

3 years ago
With temperatures consistently breaking 60 degrees, golf courses throughout the Cape Region are...

Cape Henlopen Lighthouse fell into the sea 96 years ago

3 years ago
On April 13, 1926, the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse fell into the Atlantic Ocean. Built in 1765, it was...

Lewes’ 1812 Park commemorates British bombardment

3 years ago
Lewes’ 1812 Park commemorates the defense of the First Town in the First State during an 1813...

Baseball season is upon us

3 years ago
High school baseball season kicked off last week, with Major League Baseball slated for a slightly...

Seeing a film at The Avenue movie theater in Rehoboth

3 years ago
Long before the Movies at Midway opened on Route 1, Rehoboth Beach had its very own single-screen...

A look at Milton’s inaugural St. Patrick’s Day parade

3 years ago
This week we’re traveling back to the spring of 2008. On March 16 of that year, the first St...

Stuart Kingston damaged in Storm of ’62

3 years ago
We here at the Cape Gazette try to connect our weekly historic photograph with something in the...

Beebe Healthcare’s long history in Sussex County

3 years ago
It was announced March 1 that Beebe Healthcare will be opening the R. Randall Rollins Center for...

Rehoboth Colored School in 1923

3 years ago
Delaware schools were segregated in 1923 when this “colored school” was built on the state highway...

Long before 2 Dips, there was the Lewes Beach Garage

3 years ago
The future of Lewes Beach’s beloved 2 Dips ice cream shop is uncertain after a local development...

Milton looks familiar approximately 75 years ago

3 years ago
Major growth is knocking on the door in Milton, with town officials contemplating the annexation of...

Recent snow doesn’t compare to Blizzard of 1888

3 years ago
A Jan. 29 snowstorm dumped a foot of snow on much of the Cape Region, but it doesn’t compare to the...

A different-looking Georgetown 25 years ago

3 years ago
There has been a lot of talk recently about deforestation as part of the continued development boom...

Wilson’s Pier in Dewey Beach in 1954

3 years ago
Just last week, we learned that the McKinney family has sold Pier Point Marina in Dewey Beach to an...

During Wartime, Creative Newspaper Deliveries

3 years ago
With announcement of the recent sale of the Cape Gazette, we decided to check out newspaper history...

DelDOT Snow Plows Have Come In All Shapes, Sizes

3 years ago
Delaware’s Department of Transportation has used a wide variety of snow plows through the years to...

Making Charcoal in Woods of Sussex near Millsboro

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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...

3 years 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

3 years 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...

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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...

3 years 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...

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

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

Oak Orchard boardwalk scene from around 1915

4 years 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

4 years 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

4 years 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

4 years 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

4 years 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

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

Moonlight sailing on Rehoboth Bay in 1939

4 years 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

4 years 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...

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

Hotel Carlton building on Rehoboth Avenue

4 years 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...

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

Rehoboth Beach when its streets and beaches were...

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

Modern highway construction in Ellendale in 1918

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

The first Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse lasted until 1925

4 years 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...

4 years 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

4 years 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

4 years 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

4 years 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,...

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

Rehoboth had mass transportation once; maybe again?

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

A friendly canal chat in Lewes in 1937

4 years 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

4 years 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

4 years 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

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