A new swing bridge was to be built to facilitate ship traffic as well. The Army engineers were consulted again in 1936, and they recommended adding jetties to fix the inlet in place. The department also had to protect its new Ocean Highway, and a constantly moving inlet posed a threat. Not one week later, a storm blew through that shoaled in the new inlet.ĭelDOT photo archives – aerial photo of the new bridge in 1933.Ĭonstant dredging meant constantly paying for dredging – an unappealing prospect, to say the least. The last 100 feet was removed with 2,200lbs of dynamite at 4pm on November 3 rd, 1928. Exactly one year later, they had dredged a channel for a new inlet at its modern-day location south of Burton Island. By November 1927, the inlet commission had managed to persuade the Army engineers to return to open the inlet by pointing out that the reduced salinity was destroying the seafood industry in the bays. This state of affairs continued until 1925 when the inlet closed and failed to re-open at all. Soon after it closed once more, prompting the inlet commission to contract a dredging operation for it when the dredge arrived in 1921, the inlet was open again. Another set of Army engineers arrived in March 1920 to inspect the closed inlet, only to find it open again – mission accomplished, they turned for home and left. This inlet, just like the last one, proceeded to close almost immediately. While the commission argued amongst themselves about where to put it, Sussex County farmers solved the location problem for them with a copious amount of dynamite, blasting open the inlet at its 1918 location. In early 1919, Delaware’s General Assembly created an Indian River Inlet Commission to investigate opening the inlet once more. Like most things along the coast, inlets – and inlet locations – are only temporary arrangements.ġ918, “US Geological Survey,” showing the Indian River Inlet at its northernmost location. However, some inlets closed entirely – the Sinepuxent Inlet closed in 1819 along today’s Assateague Island and never re-opened. This is a natural process called littoral drift, where sand is carried by a current and deposited further along the current’s path. The inlet where Lewes Creek empties into the Delaware Bay had moved from somewhere near Lewes in the 1600s to several miles northwest by 1937 when the new Roosevelt Inlet was opened closer to town. There are many inlets like this along the coast of the Delmarva peninsula, and over time these inlets have been subject to dramatic change. ![]() The inlet has also allowed shipping traffic in and out of the inland bays for much of its history. ![]() By connecting the Indian River Bay and Rehoboth Bay with the Atlantic ocean, the inlet provides an entry point (and the salinity) that crabs, oysters, horseshoe crabs, and many fish species need to survive in the bays. Throughout its history, this dynamic waterway has played a major role in the development of the Delaware coast. The Indian River Inlet, located in Delaware Seashore State Park, is the connection between the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean. By: Kenneth Horowitz, Interpreter at Delaware Seashore State Park
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