Working families who built railroad-era Rehoboth is Feb. 6 lecture topic

The Rehoboth Beach Museum’s Paul Lovett History Series will continue at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 6, at the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel with the presentation, “Working Families That Built Railroad Era Rehoboth.”

This lecture focuses on the working-class people who ran the businesses and kept the town operating in the period between 1901 and 1925: the innkeepers, the carousel and vaudeville theater operators, the lamplighter, the grocer and the livery men, among others.

This is a newly developed talk by Paul Lovett, a noted Rehoboth historian and creator of the Rehoboth Beach Museum’s diorama display, The Golden Age of Rehoboth Beach. It is a miniature model of the city set back in time to circa 1910, the era when the railroad ran down Rehoboth Avenue. A train complete with smoke and whistle chugs down the main thoroughfare of the replica, as the real one did until upgrades to Delaware’s roadways led automobiles to eclipse train travel as the preferred way to get to the beach.

Lecture seating is limited; tickets may be reserved at rbmuseum.org, and all proceeds support the nonprofit museum.

The Rehoboth Beach Museum is closed in January and February. It will reopen on weekends starting in March. Call 302-227-7310 or visit the website for more information.