The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula and proposed state on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia. The peninsula is 170 miles (274 km) long. In width, it ranges from 70 miles (113 km) near its center, to 12 miles (19 km) at the isthmus on its northern edge, to less near its southern tip of Cape Charles. It is bordered by the Chesapeake Bay on the west, Pocomoke Sound on the southwest, and the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
Cape Charles is a town / municipal corporation in Northampton County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,009 as of the 2010 Census.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel is a 17.6-mile (28.3 km) bridge–tunnel that crosses the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay between Delmarva and Hampton Roads in the U.S. state of Virginia. It opened in 1964, replacing ferries that had operated since the 1930s. A major project to dualize its bridges was completed in 1999, and a similar project to dualize one of its tunnels is currently underway.
The Eastern Shore of Virginia consists of two counties on the Atlantic coast detached from the mainland of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The 70-mile-long (110 km) region is part of the Delmarva Peninsula and is separated from the rest of Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay. Its population was 45,695 as of 2020.
Old Point Comfort is a point of land located in the independent city of Hampton, Virginia. Previously known as Point Comfort, it lies at the extreme tip of the Virginia Peninsula at the mouth of Hampton Roads in the United States. It was renamed Old Point Comfort to differentiate it from New Point Comfort 21 miles (34 km) up the Chesapeake Bay. A group of enslaved Africans was brought to colonial Virginia at this point in 1619. Today the location is home to Continental Park and Fort Monroe National Monument.
The Cape Henry Lighthouses are a pair of lighthouses at Cape Henry, the landform marking the southern entrance to Chesapeake Bay in the U.S. state of Virginia. The location has long been important for the large amount of ocean-going shipping traffic for the harbors, its rivers, and shipping headed to ports on the bay. The original lighthouse was the first authorized by the U.S. government, dating from 1792. It was also the first federal construction project under the Constitution, for an original contract amount of $15,200. A second lighthouse was built and completed in 1881 a short distance away after concern arose about the stability of the first. Both towers of the light station were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
Assateague Light is the 142-foot-tall (43 m) lighthouse located on the southern end of Assateague Island off the coast of the Virginia Eastern Shore, United States. The lighthouse is located within the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and can be accessed by road from Chincoteague Island over the Assateague Channel. It is owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and operated by the U.S. Coast Guard and is still used as an active aid in navigation. The keeper's quarters are used as seasonal housing for refuge temporary employees, volunteers, and interns. Constructed in 1867 to replace a shorter lighthouse 45-foot-tall (14 m) built in 1833, the lighthouse is conical in shape and is painted in alternating bands of red and white.
The Thomas Point Shoal Light, also known as Thomas Point Shoal Light Station, is a historic lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay on the east coast of the United States, and the most recognized lighthouse in Maryland. It is the only screw-pile lighthouse in the bay which stands at its original site. The current structure is a 1½ story hexagonal wooden cottage, equipped with a foghorn as well as the light.
The Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry was a passenger ferry service operating across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay from the 1930s until 1964. Known also as the Princess Anne-Kiptopeke Beach Ferry or Little Creek-Kiptopeke Beach Ferry, the service connected Virginia Beach, Virginia with Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Departures from and arrivals to Cape Charles were matched with times of Pennsylvania Railroad passenger trains such as the Del-Mar-Va Express and the Cavalier that operated the length of the Delmarva Peninsula.
Smith Island is one of the Virginia Barrier Islands located adjacent to the southern end of the Eastern Shore of Virginia in Northampton County near Cape Charles.
The Clay Island Light was a historic lighthouse located on Clay Island at the mouth of the Nanticoke River on the Chesapeake Bay. Constructed in 1832, it continued to serve the area until 1892, when it was replaced by the Sharkfin Shoal Light. Two years later, the building collapsed, and nothing remains of it.
Wolf Trap Light is a caisson lighthouse in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay, about seven and a half miles northeast of New Point Comfort Light. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
New Point Comfort Light is a lighthouse in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay, United States, off the tip of the Middle Peninsula. Finished in 1804, it is the third-oldest surviving light in the bay, and the tenth-oldest in the United States.
Cape Charles Lighthouse is an octagonal cast iron skeleton tower lighthouse at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on Smith Island which was officially removed from service in 2019. It is the tallest lighthouse in Virginia and the second tallest in the United States. This particular tower is the third lighthouse at this location. The first lighthouse at Cape Charles was a 55-foot (17 m) masonry tower completed in 1828. It was quickly deemed inadequate for its important seacoast location due to its low height and poor visibility at sea. It was soon threatened by erosion so in 1864 it was replaced by a 150-foot (46 m) masonry tower built further inland. Located a little more than a mile southwest of the old tower and 600 feet from the shoreline, the impressive 150-foot-tall conical brick tower was similar in appearance to the 1857 Cape May Lighthouse, painted white and topped with a dark brown lantern room. In 1892, a twenty-five-foot red band was painted around the white tower's midsection, about sixty feet up from the base, to make it more visible during the day. By the 1890s, it too was threatened by beach erosion which jetties built to protect it failed to halt, and with the lighthouse now only 300 feet from the ocean and the shoreline eroding at a rate of 37 feet per year it was decided that a third lighthouse needed to be built three quarters of a mile inland.
Thimble Shoal Light is a sparkplug lighthouse in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay, north of the Hampton Roads channel. The third light at this location, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The White Shoal Light was a lighthouse located in the James River near Newport News, Virginia. It outlasted all other lighthouses in the James, finally succumbing to ice in the 1970s.
The Hog Island Light was a lighthouse roughly marking its eponymous island, and thus the north side of the Great Machipongo Inlet on the Virginia coast. Originally, no light existed between Cape Henlopen, Delaware and Cape Charles, Virginia. In 1830 the United States Congress appropriated money for a coastal beacon in the general vicinity of Chincoteague Island. The following year, the Collector of Customs in Norfolk selected Assateague Island.
The Brandywine Shoal Light is a lighthouse on the north side of the ship channel in Delaware Bay on the east coast of the United States, west of Cape May, Cape May County, New Jersey, United States. It was the site of the first screw-pile lighthouse in the United States.
Union Station is a historic railway station located at Salisbury, Wicomico County, Maryland, United States. It was constructed in 1913–14, near the junction where the New York, Philadelphia & Norfolk Railroad intersected with the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railroad in the center of Salisbury. Both railroads became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). It has a 1+1⁄2-story, Flemish bond brick main block covered by a medium-pitched hip roof sheathed in slate, with single-story wings. From the 1920s to the 1950s, the PRR ran several passenger trains a day, including the Del-Mar-Va Express, through the station, north–south from Philadelphia to Cape Charles, Virginia.
