Over Calm Waters

Over Calm Waters. The Bridge at Lewes. , Bridging History , The Junction and Breakwater Railroad (J&BRR) was founded in 1857 but because it was built in stages, it took more than a decade for the railroad to link Harrington with Lewes, with trains finally running to Lewes in early 1870. The railroad ran trains carrying general freight and agricultural goods as well as passengers. In 1883 the J&BRR was consolidated with other Delaware railroads into the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad (DM&V), eventually becoming part of the vast railroad network controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad., During World War II, the U.S. Army built Fort Miles at Cape Henlopen to guard the mouth of the Delaware Bay from enemy ships and submarines. As part of this defense installation, a pier was built into the bay and was used to transfer explosive naval mines brought to the coast by railcar onto ships which would lay them in the waters around Lewes. After the end of the war in 1945, Fort Miles was deactivated and the Barcroft Company took over the pier and parts of the site. The railroad was used to transport raw materials to the Barcroft plant, which produced pharmaceutical ingredients. The railroad continued to serve the plant until 2017 when the rail line was decommissioned., Canal and Bridge , A railroad bridge was located near this site as early as 1869. Built by the J&BRR, this first bridge was a timber structure that crossed the Lewes Creek. In 1913, work began on widening the Lewes Creek into a canal that would be six-feet deep and 50-feet wide. The new canal was intended to provide a route for heavy cargo and open the inland area to further development. , The construction of the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal forced the DM&V to build a new and larger bridge that could span the canal and allow boats to pass. The bridge was designed by DM&V's engineering department and fabricated by the American Bridge Company at their facility in Pencoyd, Pennsylvania, using 116,000 lbs. of steel. Not counting the cost of labor or material for a temporary bridge, the new swing bridge was projected to cost $24,658 in 1915 dollars-a relative project cost of about $4,020,000 in 2020., The bridge served the DM&V and its railroad successors into the 21st century. By 2017, however, it had sunk between seven and eight inches into the mud at the bottom of the canal, creating a safety issue for trains attempting to cross the canal. In addition, the bridge had caused erosion along the banks of the canal. Because of this, it was decided to remove the bridge, ending rail service east of Lewes after nearly 150 years., [Captions] , Lewes Bridge in open position. (Ron MacArthur, May 2019, Cape Gazette), An 1868 atlas plate shows the newly built J&BRR crossing Lewes Creek via a timber bridge en route to the Delaware Bay steamboat pier. (Beers, D.G. Atlas of the State of Delaware: From Actual Surveys. Philadelphia: Pomeroy and Beers, 1868, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press, Newark, Delaware), A mid-to-late 20th century aerial photograph looking northwest at the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal (center) with the Route 9 Bridge and the DM&V Railroad bridge visible in the center of the photo. The railroad bridge is in the open position to allow boat traffic to pass. (Delaware Public Archives, Delaware Economic Development Office Photograph Collection)