Skip to main content
Tag

Salisbury

Salisbury Fire 1886 Featured Photo
The Great Salisbury Fire of 1886 Never Should Have Gotten Out of Hand Way Back Machine

The Great Salisbury Fire of 1886 Never Should Have Gotten Out of Hand

The key moment in the 1886 fire that destroyed downtown Salisbury came seven years before the first spark. In 1879 a waterfront business called Jackson’s Mill caught fire—and that blaze looked at first to be a dicey situation. Salisbury didn’t have a “modern” fire department (in the late 1800s sense of that term) at this point, so an old-fashioned bucket brigade went to work. Meanwhile,…
October 6, 2025
The One Best Place WC Thurston Poet Featured Photo SIZED
Quote of the Day, 1938: “The Eastern Shore is a most delightful land; the one best place … to live and love and work.” Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Quote of the Day, 1938: “The Eastern Shore is a most delightful land; the one best place … to live and love and work.”

In 1938 a beloved Salisbury book shop owner and poet named W.C. Thurston served as editor of a book titled The Eastern Shore in Song and Story: A Tribute from its Loyal Sons and Daughters to a Pleasant Peninsula. It's a compilation of essays about and samples from various writers and songwriters whose work sings the praises of our Eastern Shore. I haven't read the…
May 17, 2025
What This Old Building Says About Salisbury–and all of Delmarva Way Back Machine

What This Old Building Says About Salisbury–and all of Delmarva

In 2022 The City of Salisbury, Md. received a big state grant to help get started on a plan to rescue and revitalize the dilapidated old Union Station building on Railroad Avenue. Seeing those headlines inspired me to put together this bullet-point look at how that old structure fits into the fabric of the history of Salisbury—and, in fact, the whole of the Delmarva Peninsula.…
April 18, 2023
Helen Lowe Bullet Point Bio Featured Photo Delmar
BULLET-POINT BIOGRAPHY: The Graduate (Delmar High, 1903) CharactersWay Back Machine

BULLET-POINT BIOGRAPHY: The Graduate (Delmar High, 1903)

A couple of years back one of those social-media waves rolled through, inspiring everyone to post their old high school graduation picture. No disrespect intended to all my friends who played that game, I didn't see anyone on my newsfeed who had a better old photo than that of Helen Lowe, a 1903 graduate of Delmar High School. I came across her photo in the…
April 18, 2022
Gilbert Lare of Federalsburg Maryland Featured Image
The Legend of Gilbert Lare, aka “The Del-Mar-Va Bandit” of the 1930s CharactersWay Back Machine

The Legend of Gilbert Lare, aka “The Del-Mar-Va Bandit” of the 1930s

The criminal career of Gilbert Lare, aka "The Del-Mar-Va Bandit,” began with a seemingly minor affair. Wilmington News Journal, Dec. 27, 1926: Gilbert Lare, a young man of , was arrested by Constable Thomas Nichols breaking into store on South Main Street Wednesday night and removing two slot machines. … The machines were found early the following morning along the river shores, broken up, and…
June 30, 2020
Somerset Steak Knives Featured Image Small
Somerset Journey: The Steak Knife Was Invented in Crisfield, and That Story Begins on Marumsco Creek CharactersWay Back Machine

Somerset Journey: The Steak Knife Was Invented in Crisfield, and That Story Begins on Marumsco Creek

The story behind the creation of the steak knife in your kitchen drawer involves a bit of manufacturing ingenuity, but there is more to it. Think romantic sleigh rides, a devastating fire, steadfast religious faith, and then—a Christmas gift from a friend that changes everything. This Somerset County, Md. tale begins with a farm boy who hated farm work. He much preferred puttering around in…
March 31, 2020
Map with Humphrey's Lake in Salisbury on Maryland's Eastern Shore
How a Construction Mishap Back in 1909 Helped Create Modern-Day Salisbury From the BooksWay Back Machine

How a Construction Mishap Back in 1909 Helped Create Modern-Day Salisbury

This excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips #1: 27 One-Day Adventures on Delmarva is comes in the midst of a road trip through Salisbury, starting on the east at the Ward Museum and then running through City Park and into downtown and its Riverwalk. Do you see that giant kidney-shaped thing at the top of this old map of downtown Salisbury? That is the 40-acre Humphrey's Lake that…
May 24, 2016
Philadelphia Athletics on field at Shibe Park, 1911 World Series, Home Run Baker is second from left
America’s Pastime on the Eastern Shore: A tour chock full of baseball greatness Road Trips

America’s Pastime on the Eastern Shore: A tour chock full of baseball greatness

NOTES: This is a free excerpt from my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 More One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. Enjoy! More info on the book here. JIMMIE FOX OF SUDLERVILLE Itty bitty Sudlersville is the first of four stops in this tour of the Shore’s rich baseball history. Located off of Route 301 as it heads up from Queenstown toward Delaware, this town with…
March 22, 2015
The Ward Brothers in Crisfield
Salisbury Gems: The Ward Museum and City Park DestinationsRoad Trips

Salisbury Gems: The Ward Museum and City Park

  “Two dumb country boys.” That’s how Lem Ward liked to describe himself and his brother, Steve. They were born in the last years of the 19th century and lived in Crisfield. Both were barbers by trade, just like their father. They shared a shop, in fact. And for fun, they sang in a little barbershop quartet. Darn if those two dumb country boys didn’t end…
February 10, 2015