Cape Charles, VA
Cape Charles is a town in Northampton County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 1,009 according to the 2010 Census.
History
Cape Charles, situated near the Chesapeake Bay’s mouth on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, was established in 1884 as a planned community by railroad and ferry interests. In 1883, William Lawrence Scott, then president of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad Company (NYP&N), acquired three plantations totaling around 2,509 acres from the heirs of former Virginia Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell. Of this land, 40 acres were given to the NYP&N, and 136 acres were used to create Cape Charles. Scott named the town after the geographic cape on the Point and headland to the south and sold some of this land to the Railroad Company to serve as the southern terminus of the line on the Delmarva Peninsula. Construction of the railroad began that same year, and the Railroad Company built a harbor port in Cape Charles to handle steamships and freighters.
The original layout of Cape Charles, which is still visible today, divided 136 acres into 644 lots. Seven wider avenues running east to west were named after Virginia statesmen, while the north-south streets were named for fruits. This design was inspired by Erie, Pennsylvania, where Scott had previously served as mayor.
Historian William G. Thomas notes that nearly $300,000 was invested in dredging a new harbor out of a lagoon between King’s and Old Plantation creeks. The harbor, initially developed around 1890, was expanded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who dredged the harbor basin, entrance, and channel through Cherrystone Inlet and built stone jetties to protect it. By 1912, Cape Charles harbor was handling 2.5 million tons of freight annually.
Cape Charles was once the terminal for the Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry, which provided passenger and vehicle ferry service across the Bay to Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Hampton-Newport News. The ferry service ended in 1963. The town also served as a terminal for railway freight barges transporting rail cars across the Bay to Norfolk. The Bay Coast Railroad, which succeeded the Eastern Shore Railroad, ceased operations in 2018. Nearby, there is also a cement factory.
Cape Charles hosted the Northampton Red Sox in the old Eastern Shore Baseball League. The Cape Charles Historic District and Stratton Manor are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Geography
Cape Charles is located on a peninsula and is surrounded by water on three sides. It sits directly on the Chesapeake Bay, bordered by King’s Creek to the north and Old Plantation Creek to the south. The town’s land is low-lying and flat, with the highest point at just 15 feet above sea level and a slope of less than 1%. Most of the developed land is between 5 and 10 feet in elevation.
The town covers an area of 4.4 square miles (11.3 km²), of which 3.7 square miles (9.5 km²) is land and 0.7 square miles (1.8 km²), or 16.06%, is water. The Chesapeake Bay impact crater, formed about 35 million years ago, is located near Cape Charles. This circular crater, with a diameter of approximately 53 miles, resulted from a comet or asteroid impact on the U.S. Atlantic continental shelf.
Recreation
Cape Charles features one of the two public beaches on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the only public beach on its bayside. The beach, extending half a mile along Bay Avenue, includes a paved walkway and is used for swimming, sunbathing, and other recreational activities. Access to the beach is provided by wooden walkovers at Tazewell and Randolph Avenues, and the Fun Pier. The beach is maintained with buried groins and a bulkhead. In 1987, the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the harbor and deposited sand along the beach, expanding its width and improving sand quality. Regular sand replenishment is needed to combat erosion.
Adjacent to the public beach is the Fun Pier, which extends across the stone jetty at the harbor’s entrance. This wooden pier features railings and benches and is popular for sightseeing. Cape Charles also has one of six public boat ramp sites in Northampton County, and one of three on the County’s Bayside.
The 29-acre Cape Charles Natural Area Preserve, managed by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, includes a boardwalk that traverses various natural communities, including a Maritime Loblolly Pine Forest. The preserve is home to the federally threatened northeastern beach tiger beetle and is part of the Lower Delmarva Important Bird Area, attracting migratory songbirds and raptors during fall migration.
INDUSTRY
Cape Charles Harbor supports local industry and tourism. Initially developed for loading and unloading railroad cars on barges, the harbor features extensive bulkheading and commercial docking facilities for industrial use. The town’s industrial activity is centered around the harbor and includes the Eastern Shore Railroad, Bayshore Concrete, the commercial dock, and the Sustainable Technology Park.
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