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Way Back Machine

Stories about the way things were on the Delmarva Peninsula–the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and Delaware.

Typical Chicken Farm 1940s FEATURED PHOTO from Poultry Industry History
Way Back Machine

You’ve Heard of Bootleggers? How about Meatleggers? There Were Lots of Them on Delmarva in the 1940s

What you see up top here is an ordinary Delmarva chicken farm in the early 1940s. But that decade was anything but ordinary for the poultry industry: Think black marketeering, bushel baskets of cash hidden in attics, and military roadblocks set up on DuPont Highway. These were World War II years. Among the array of complex logistics in that conflict was the task of feeding…
September 21, 2023
CharactersWay Back Machine

From Frankford to the Front Lines and Back: World War II Hero Ernest Marvel

NOTE: This is a special guest post. Lucas Pineda Walls is my 13-year-old great nephew. In getting to know him I learned about his great interest in World War II—almost obsessive, actually. I asked him if he would be interested in telling the story of one of our Delmarva veterans from that greatest generation. This is a lightly edited version of the story that he…
July 20, 2023
Mirror of the Almighty Tangier Island Camp Meeting Featured Image
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

Way Back Machine: ‘A Mirror of the Almighty’ on Tangier Island, 1828

The modern-day tourism trade on Smith and Tangier islands dates to the 1960s, when tour boats first started shuttling curious daytrippers out into the middle of the bay. But visitors have actually been flocking to these islands for centuries. In 1821, one observer reported seeing more than 400 boats anchored around Tangier. He estimated the crowd attending that year’s Methodist camp meeting at more than…
June 22, 2023
Robert Banks Featured Photo 2
CharactersWay Back Machine

A Korean War Hero from Cambridge and the Price of our Freedoms: The Story of Robert Banks

Imagine a young soldier stationed halfway around the world. He's been through hell on the battlefield and landed in a prison camp where food comes in starvation rations, infectious diseases run rampant, and winter nights descend in a bone-chilling freeze deeper than anything he's ever known. His comrades in arms are dropping like flies, their bodies tossed unceremoniously into ditches. One thing keeps this young…
June 17, 2023
Almost a State of Delmarva Featured Image
Way Back Machine

WAY BACK MACHINE: The Almost State of Delmarva, 1830s

In 1833, the Eastern Shore came within a whisker of becoming part of Delaware. One vote! That's all that prevented the union. No one called our peninsula "Delmarva" back in 1833. But lots of people recognized it as a well-defined place unto itself, thanks to a mix of geography and deep-seated cultural affinities. Lots of folks also thought it was kinda strange, how history had…
June 14, 2023
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

This Rug Tells a Bedtime Story: When Pittsville Was “the Strawberry Capital of the World”

"The Strawberry Capital of the World:" That's the title of the artwork above by a famous "rug hooker," Mary Sheppard Burton. The setting is our own Pittsville, Md., one of the towns just off of Route 50 between Salisbury and Ocean City. (The artwork is below here as well, in a bigger size at the end of the story.) Burton was born in Salisbury in…
May 28, 2023
Strange & WondrousWay Back Machine

The Futuro House Aims for the Stratosphere

This is a free excerpt from my book, You Wouldn't Believe! 44 Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales. More info about that and my other books exploring the history, travel, and culture on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware here. Unless you’re a pilot taking off from the tiny Eagle Crest Airport or a worshipper bound for Burton Chapel AME Church, there’s no reason to take a westbound…
April 22, 2023
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
Frenchtown New Castle Railroad Featured Photo
Way Back Machine

A Railroad Milestone, with Doomed Cow, Peach Baskets, and a Modern Cocktail

As I was putting this piece together, railroad safety was front and center in our 21st-century news media. Two big train derailments, one spewing toxic chemicals in an Ohio town. Who’s to blame? What should be done? How can railroad safety be improved? I don’t have answers to those questions, but I can tell you about the birthplace of railroad safety—the very first place in…
March 26, 2023