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.

The birth of Henlopen Acres in 1930

3 years ago
This photograph made around 1930 hangs inside Henlopen Acres Town Hall. It shows a group of people...

Delaware State Fair a century ago

3 years ago
The Delaware State Fair as we know it today was founded in 1919 as the Kent and Sussex County Fair...

Stokely Brothers & Company cannery in 1931

3 years ago
The Stokely Brothers & Company purchased a cannery along the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal just south of...

Rehoboth Beach Patrol in 1950

3 years ago
Although technically it’s the 101st anniversary of Rehoboth Beach Patrol this summer, the...

Aerial look at Rehoboth in 1932

3 years ago
Now that we’ve reached the peak tourist season in the Cape Region, let’s take a look at Rehoboth...

Doo-Dah Parade is a Lewes tradition

3 years ago
The Doo-Dah Parade has been a Lewes tradition for more than 50 years. Although it’s never been an...

Lewes pie-eating contest in 1950

3 years ago
A pie-eating contest has been part of Lewes’ Fourth of July tradition for decades. This 1950...

Rehoboth’s Bright House Hotel in the late 19th century

3 years ago
Cape Gazette reporter Chris Flood wrote an article in the Friday, June 17 edition about Rehoboth...

HMS DeBraak was found in Lewes 37 years ago

3 years ago
In 1985, salvagers used emerging sidescan sonar technology to detect the location of the sunken HMS...

Original MV Cape Henlopen participated in D-Day

3 years ago
The Cape May-Lewes Ferry has transported more than 45 million passengers across the Delaware Bay...

Drive-on beaches are a Delaware tradition

3 years ago
Now that the unofficial start of summer has arrived, the drive-on beaches at Delaware state parks...

Beach day at Cape Henlopen State Park

3 years ago
If this past weekend’s weather is any indication, summer temperatures have finally arrived in the...

Fort Miles soldiers check the weather

3 years ago
The Cape Region has had wild weather from winter through the spring. From one week to another,...

Mayor Otis Smith celebrates Lewes’ 325th anniversary

3 years ago
For the first time in many years, Lewes will have a mayoral election Saturday, May 14. Over the...

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

4 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

4 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

4 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...

4 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

4 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...

4 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

4 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

4 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...

4 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...

4 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

4 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

4 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

4 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

4 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

4 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...