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.

Moonlight sailing on Rehoboth Bay in 1939

3 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

3 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...

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

Hotel Carlton building on Rehoboth Avenue

3 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...

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

Rehoboth Beach when its streets and beaches were...

3 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

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

The first Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse lasted until 1925

3 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...

3 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

3 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

3 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

3 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,...

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

Rehoboth had mass transportation once; maybe again?

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

A friendly canal chat in Lewes in 1937

3 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

3 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

3 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

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

Community chimes in on last week’s photograph

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 years 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

3 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

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

A different brand of presidential inauguration...

3 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...

3 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...

3 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...

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

Delaware has seen tough winters in the past

3 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...

3 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

3 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

3 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

4 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

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

Enjoying the ox roast at mid-20th century Return Day

4 years ago
This picture postcard from the mid-20th century shows a Return Day throng crowded around the ox...

Ferrying across the Chesapeake to get to the beach

4 years ago
Gary Myers of Rehoboth Beach sent this photo in recently showing vehicles in 1952 getting off the...

Piling harvested Sussex pumpkins for canning in 1923

4 years ago
This photograph from Oct. 20, 1923, shows pumpkins piled on the grounds of the H.P. Cannon cannery...

It’s apple-picking season in Delaware

4 years ago
An old bluegrass song reminds us: “Peaches ripen in the summertime, apples ripen in the fall; if I...

Lewes High’s rifle club in 1967

4 years ago
Becky Carney sent this page from the 1967 Lewes High School yearbook after seeing a column in the...

South end of Rehoboth’s Boardwalk in 1957

4 years ago
Rehoboth Beach resident Gary Myers sent through an old photograph recently from his family archives...

Mid-1900s volleyball team in Sussex County

4 years ago
Summer has switched to fall. Schools are back in modified session due to COVID-19. Sports are now...

Wet Septembers can still bring plenty of mosquitos

4 years ago
In a state as wet as Delaware, mosquitos pose a constant threat, especially in active hurricane...

When Labor Day marked the end of Rehoboth’s summer...

4 years ago
This postcard from the middle of the 1900s captures the sense at that time of Labor Day’s...

Highway policing in Delaware à la 1931

4 years ago
Policing of the highways in Delaware looked a lot different in 1931 than it does today. This...

Lewes High School as it appeared in the 1940s

4 years ago
This postcard was mailed in 1946 and shows the Lewes School on Savannah Road as it appeared at that...

Another public health initiative - mosquito ditches

4 years ago
This photograph from 1945 shows a recently maintained Delaware Mosquito Control ditch dug to help...

Delaware State Fair back in 1914

4 years ago
We’ve just been through the Delaware State Fair season which is also typically the hottest time of...

An Amish crop of soybeans after wheat back in 1985

4 years ago
This photograph from 1985 shows an Amish farm near Dover in Kent County with a crop of soybeans...

A far-less-developed Fenwick Island from mid-20th...

4 years ago
This picture postcard from the mid-20th century shows a far less developed and commercial Fenwick...

Tomato season then and now in Sussex County

4 years ago
Fresh garden tomatoes are coming on strong now in Sussex County. In the first half of the 20th...

Main Street in Bridgeville in the late 1800s

4 years ago
This antique picture postcard from the late 1800s shows Main Street in downtown Bridgeville on the...

One of Rehoboth’s early amusement parks

4 years ago
Neal “Joe” Boyle donated an extensive collection of Delaware postcards to the Delaware Public...

Public Health in Millsboro in the middle of the 20th...

4 years ago
Public health, with a focus on nutrition, was on display during a Millsboro elementary first grade...

Rehoboth’s Belhaven Hotel in a former era

4 years ago
Plans for a new Belhaven Hotel in Rehoboth Beach at the corner of Boardwalk and Rehoboth Avenue are...
CORRECTION

A formal and all-female graduation in 19th century...

4 years ago
Colleen Herman of Millsboro sent the following letter after publication of this historic photo...

From a time when strawberries reigned large in Sussex

4 years ago
This photograph from Delaware’s Department of Agriculture shows the streets of Selbyville crowded...

Delaware National Guard at Johnson’s 1965 inauguration

4 years ago
This photograph from the Delaware Economic Development Office archives shows members of Delaware’s...

Ticonderoga passes beneath Delaware Memorial Bridge...

4 years ago
This photograph from 1955 shows the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Ticonderoga passing beneath the...