Tunnell-West House (c. 1860)
Ocean View, Sussex County, Delaware
Marker Inscription
Tunnell-West House, 39 Central Avenue, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior. c. 1860.
The Story
This modest frame dwelling has stood in the small Sussex County town of Ocean View since about 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, when this stretch of coastal Delaware was still a quiet landscape of farms, timber, and small crossroads communities well before it became a beach-resort corridor. Homes like the Tunnell-West House anchored such towns, passing through local families across generations. Its listing on the National Register of Historic Places marks it as a recognized survivor of that antebellum era, worth preserving as the region around it transformed.
Why it matters
Everyday vernacular houses like this one are the physical memory of how ordinary 19th-century American communities lived, and its National Register listing helps ensure that a modest but authentic piece of Delaware's past endures.
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