Delaware Cape Region History in Photographs

A different-looking Georgetown 25 years ago

3 days 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

1 week 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

2 weeks 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 weeks 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

1 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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 month 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...

2 months 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

2 months 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...

2 months 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

2 months 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 months 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 months 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 months 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 months 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

4 months 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

4 months 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

4 months 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

4 months 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 months ago

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

Oak Orchard boardwalk scene from around 1915

5 months 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

5 months 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

5 months 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

5 months 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

6 months 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

6 months ago

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

Moonlight sailing on Rehoboth Bay in 1939

6 months 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

6 months 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...

6 months ago

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

Hotel Carlton building on Rehoboth Avenue

7 months 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...

7 months ago

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

Rehoboth Beach when its streets and beaches were...

7 months ago

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

Modern highway construction in Ellendale in 1918

7 months ago

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

The first Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse lasted until 1925

8 months 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...

8 months 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

8 months 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

8 months 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

9 months 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,...

9 months ago

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

Rehoboth had mass transportation once; maybe again?

9 months ago

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

A friendly canal chat in Lewes in 1937

9 months 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

9 months 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

10 months 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

10 months 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

10 months 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

10 months 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

11 months ago

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

Community chimes in on last week’s photograph

11 months 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

11 months 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

11 months 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

1 year 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

1 year ago

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

A different brand of presidential inauguration...

1 year 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...

1 year 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...

1 year 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...

1 year ago

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

Delaware has seen tough winters in the past

1 year ago

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

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

1 year ago

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