Rehoboth water fountain in the mid-20th century
For nearly a century, a water fountain has stood at the east end of Rehoboth Avenue in Rehoboth Beach. Erected in 1929 by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the fountain was an icon and meeting place for many families long before the Dolle’s sign loomed over the Boardwalk. The fountain has been in the news recently after the Cape Gazette reached out to city officials about it being out of order for many years. After initially saying there were no plans to fix it, the city reconsidered when Harry Caswell offered to do the repairs for free. The fountain is connected to the country’s prohibition era from 1920 to 1933, as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was one of many groups lobbying for the 18th Amendment to prohibit alcohol. The WCTU initiated the practice of erecting public water fountains across the country in 1874 as a visible means of quenching one’s thirst with water instead of alcohol. The application for the fountain to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places says the fountain “represents this important women’s civic organization who took a prominent role in promoting social welfare causes in Delaware from the 1870s to the 1960s. This fountain, erected in 1929 to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Delaware branch of this national organization, reflects the heart of the mission of this organization: to promote abstinence from alcohol as symbolized by providing water as an alternative.”
The application was jointly submitted by former City Manager Greg Ferrese and longtime Rehoboth historian Evelyn Dick Thoroughgood, who died in 2015. Thoroughgood received the Mae Hall McCabe Award for Community Service from the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce in 2002. During remarks upon receiving the award, Thoroughgood offered a historic tidbit about the fountain. While voicing concern about the future of the fountain – the city’s Rehoboth Avenue streetscape project was on the horizon – Thoroughgood said ice men once delivered blocks of ice to be placed in a hole under the fountain to ensure cold water for users. That compartment washed out during the Storm of ’62 and was replaced by a cement step.
This image, a slide found by Rehoboth Beach’s Jay Stevenson, shows the fountain in the mid-20th century. This was well before the current Bandstand was constructed, and many of the buildings on either side of Rehoboth Avenue are now gone.
