ON THE ROAD TO FENWICK ISLAND

HISTORY OF CAPE HENLOPEN AND BEYOND

ON THE ROAD TO FENWICK ISLAND FROM REHOBOTH

February 9, 1915: Wilmington Evening Journal :

A hundred year ago is was difficult to travel between these two beach towns, a sandy

road of wild sand dunes from Dewey Beach southward to Fenwick Island, an inlet at

Indian River Inlet with no bridge, and a new town under construction , Bethany Beach.

By horse or foot it was difficult to traverse the round about way and autos needed to use

the highways on the western side of the inland bays, through Millsboro.

In 1915, The Delaware Public Lands Commission, issued a report to urge the building of a

coastal road between Rehoboth and Fenwick, across the wicked dunes that “will return a

thousand fold to the state for every dollar spent”. Yes, they knew of the many obstacles

that lay in the way for an early 20^th century road, sandy, unpaved, rutted and impassable

in wet weather. Plus, until 1911 there were no roads to feed western or northern traffic to

the coastal highways. That came about when T. Coleman du Pont built his own hard surface

road north to south in mid state. Still this event did not directly benefit at coastal road

from Rehoboth to Fenwick. Farm produce, at that time '”marsh hay grass' was the only

money maker with a small bit of cattle grazing.

Oceanside vacation homes did catch a few eyes of the more wealthy property owners and

the Indian River Inlet needed to be covered. The commission knew they were late with these

decisions but WW I delays, squabbling politics and economic difficulties stood in the path.

It was 1939 before a hard surface road appeared with a bridge over the inlet, but, it did,

“return a thousand fold of every dollar spent”.

Abstract: 9 February, 1915, Wilmington Evening News, and Michael Morgan's Delaware

Diary, Delaware Coast Press, 2019.