Bowers, DE

Bowers, commonly called Bowers Beach, is a Kent County town set between the St. Jones River and the Murderkill River where both meet Delaware Bay. The area was first known as Whitwell's Delight, a late-seventeenth-century tract named by Francis Whitwell. After John Bowers acquired the land in 1734, the name Bowers Beach took hold. The shoreline location shaped everything that followed: docks, cottages, fishing, oyster grounds, and roads running down to the water.

ATTRFamartin / CC BY-SA 4.0

Bowers grew into one of Delaware Bay's notable fishing towns, with an average of about 300 boats once using its docks and moorings. The town was first incorporated in 1907 and reincorporated with a charter in 1962. Delaware history also remembers the seasonal gatherings around the beginning of oyster season, when separate days drew white and Black beachgoers to the same stretch of shore. Today the town remains a small bay settlement, with the St. Jones and Murderkill Rivers framing a local map that is more tidal than inland.