Cool Spring Station

Cool Spring Station. The Junction and Breakwater Railroad. , Established in 1870, the Cool Spring Station operated as a freight stop on the Junction and Breakwater Railroad (J&BRR) at the northeast corner of the present-day intersection of Cool Spring Road and Lewes Georgetown Highway. During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, freight was received and delivered from this station out of a freight house and freight shed on the north side of the railroad tracks. By the 1920s, both buildings had been demolished and replaced with a new, raised platform freight shed. The shed was removed by the mid-1930s, and no railroad-related buildings remain at this location., When Freight was Great , While the railroad did offer passenger service, it was freight traffic that generated the highest earnings throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The J&BRR profited from the region's natural timber resources and farm products. Local farmers profited because their perishable crops could be transported at a faster rate than ever before to meet demands in urban centers., At Cool Spring Station, large shipments of lumber and charcoal were loaded onto trains via an adjacent railroad siding just east of the station buildings. By the early twentieth century, the shipped freight from this station also included canned tomatoes produced at the nearby Coolspring Canning Company. Delaware's tomato canning industry emerging in the 1890s, when the crop began to replace former peach orchards, which had been destroyed by disease. By 1900, the state ranked third in the nation for canned tomato production. Coolspring Canning Company continued to operated from this location until at least 1920.