History of the Canal: The Lewes-Rehoboth Canal
Rehoboth Beach, Sussex County, Delaware
Marker Inscription
History of the Canal The Lewes Rehoboth Canal is ten miles long and connects the Delaware Bay with Rehoboth Bay. It was built so that agricultural products could be shipped from the area around Rehoboth Bay to the Delaware Bay and then on to Baltimore and Philadelphia. A canal was first proposed in 1803, but actual construction did not begin until 1866 when excavation was done for about two miles from Rehoboth Bay toward Lewes. In 1912, with the backing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Congress approved funding to complete the canal. The partially completed canal was opened for business in 1916, but it was not fully completed until 1923. Most of the construction was performed using a suction dredge. A suction dredge works like an underwater vacuum cleaner. A hose sucks up stream bed material and delivers it to a container on the shore. The debris is then taken away. Panel funded by University of Delaware/Sustainable Coastal Communities Initiative Historical content courtesy of Rehoboth Beach Museum
Erected by University of Delaware
The Story
The Lewes-Rehoboth Canal was dreamed of as early as 1803 but sat unbuilt for generations, its ten-mile cut between Delaware Bay and Rehoboth Bay meant to speed farm goods toward the markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Real digging began only in 1866, and it took the backing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a 1912 act of Congress to finally see it through, opening in 1916 and finishing in 1923. Much of it was carved by a suction dredge that worked the streambed like an underwater vacuum.
Why it matters
The canal is a small monument to the long, patient effort to knit rural America into the coastal shipping economy, a project that took over a century from idea to completion.
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