For the men stationed at Fort Miles during World War II, recreation activities were abundant

By Michael Morgan
Photograph by Delaware Public Archive
From the April 2024 issue

Cornfield-Story-April

“Just one year ago,” Delaware Coast News columnist Virginia Cullen wrote in May 1942, “the silent, saffron slopes of Cape Henlopen were known only to the wind and the tides; to a few straggling fishermen casting in the thundering surf. Where leisurely picnickers basked under the soporific sun. Where berry pickers for the sleepy little town of Lewes gathered wild plums and cranberries in the spring.” But since then, with World War II underway in Europe and the clouds of that conflict drifting across the Atlantic, construction crews had invaded the peaceful sands of Cape Henlopen to begin work on Fort Miles, which would become one of the most modern military installations on the East Coast. Eventually, massive concrete gun emplacements, bunkers and the ubiquitous spotting towers were built on the sands of the cape.

Sprinkled among these instruments of war, however, were tennis courts, a baseball diamond and other recreational facilities for the more than 2,000 men garrisoned at the fort.

A parked truck is just the latest witness to our region’s endless development

By Bill Newcott
Illustration by Rob Waters
From the April 2024 issue

Cornfield-Story-April

The source of the melancholy that sweeps over me as I make the turn off Cedar Grove Road onto Mulberry Knoll, near Lewes, is at once obvious and elusive.

At the southwest corner spreads a cornfield — at least, as of this writing. It is midsummer: a time of growth, green and hopeful, the stalks topping out just at eye level. Far, far in the distance, a stand of trees marks the field’s western boundary; a here-and-no-further wall that has, perhaps for a century or so, defined the demarcation between agriculture and nature’s last stand. 

And there, parked diagonally near the intersection, is an old Chevy panel truck, lovingly maintained yet defiantly utilitarian. “247 Single Family Lots For Sale,” a sign on the truck proclaims. 

This annual winter fundraiser in Georgetown is one shell of a time

By Bill Newcott
Photograph by Scott Nathan
From the Winter 2023 issue

winter-2023-issue

Table 3 is waiting for more oysters. A dozen or so men in ball caps and sweatshirts are shuffling anxiously from foot to foot, most of them fidgeting with the handles of the short, rounded knives they clutch in their hands. 

A few puff impatiently on cigars. The thick smoke curls toward the ceiling of the Georgetown Fire Company garage, churning into a growing cloud fed by countless more fat cigars and glowing cigarettes in this enormous, but closed, space.

Some 800 men are crammed into the firehouse, and a lucky hundred or so have spots at the eight 10-foot-long oyster shucking tables: rustic, rectangular wood affairs, slathered with generations of green paint. A shelf rises in the middle of each one, topped with containers of ketchup, vinegar, hot sauce, salt and black pepper. 

Also up there are bags of oyster crackers, which I’d always assumed were named that because they look like little oysters. Not so, it turns out: They happen to be a traditional oyster side dish and frequent ingredient in oyster stew.