Before there was a Coast Guard on this coast, there were surfmen. They served at life-saving stations along the shore, and one of their stations still stands at Delaware Seashore State Park: the Indian River Life-Saving Station.
A service built for shipwrecks
The original station was built in 1876 for the United States Life-Saving Service, a federal organization created to respond to the alarming number of shipwrecks along the nation's coasts. The Life-Saving Service is the precursor of today's U.S. Coast Guard.
A building that moved
The station did not stay where it was built. It first stood about 400 feet closer to the shore, and a sand dune began to form around it almost as soon as it was finished. In 1877 it was moved to the spot where it stands now.
What visitors see today is the station restored to its 1905 appearance, down to the diamond-shaped trim.
The work
The men who served there were local, and they were called surfmen. They manned the station through the stormy winter months. When they were not answering a wreck, they drilled on rescue techniques by day and walked the beaches at night, watching for ships in distress.
The record of that work is the reason the building is kept. Delaware State Parks credits the surfmen of Station Indian River Inlet with saving the lives of more than 400 sailors between 1876 and 1915.
The station now
The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, and it is operated today as a maritime museum, part of Delaware Seashore State Park. It honors the surfmen and the rescues they made. The Delaware Public Archives has also marked the station with a state historical marker.
Delaware State Parks runs programs at the station through the year, including demonstrations of the rescue equipment the surfmen trained with. Program dates, museum hours and any admission are set by the park; check its current listings before you go.
Why it is worth the stop
Most of the coast's history is told through things that were built to last: forts, towers, lighthouses. The life-saving station is different. It is a building about a kind of work, done by people from nearby, in the worst weather of the year, for strangers whose ships had failed them. For a station whose dune once forced it to move, it has lasted well.
Sources: Delaware State Parks' Indian River Life Saving Station page (destateparks.com) for the 1876 construction, the Life-Saving Service, the 1877 move, the 1905 restoration, the surfmen's duties and the more than 400 sailors saved between 1876 and 1915; the Delaware Public Archives historical marker for the station; National Register listing as described by Delaware State Parks. Delaware Beach Finds did not visit the station for this story. Hours, programs and fees are the park's; check its current information.