Rosedale Beach Hotel site gets state historic marker

An official state historic marker has been installed at the site of the old Rosedale Beach Hotel and Resort near Millsboro. Before integration, the hotel and resort was an East Coast destination for people of color.

In addition to a hotel, the resort featured a beach and picnic area, restaurant, dance hall, boardwalk and amusement park. The facility operated from the early 1900s to the 1970s.

Entertainers such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and Jackie Wilson played at the resort.

When Delaware’s beaches, hotels and other public facilities were integrated in 1963, visitation to Rosedale Beach declined. The property was sold to Gull Point Inc. in 1983.

Shown at the Dec. 2 marker installation are Kahlil Shaw and wife, Tamara Jubilee-Shaw, of Millsboro.