Highball Signal

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

From the record

“Highball Signal is a historic railroad signal located in Delmar, Delaware, United States. The signal can be described as a white sphere mounted onto a pole, located next to railroad tracks, intended to signal permission for a train to proceed at full speed; as long as the ball is at the top of the pole.”
Wikipedia article Highball Signal, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 136 National Register listings published here for Sussex County · listed in 1973 · category: Object.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 object as contributing to the listing.
Address. City park, near Penn-Central RR., Delmar
When was it listed? July 1973
Category. object
National Register reference number. 73000553 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

25 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of Highball Signal between 2005 and 2019, burning about 30 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 6 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	9
Arson/incendiarism	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Recreation and ceremony	1
Natural	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
5 September 2013	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
4 September 2005	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
10 September 2005	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
3 August 2006	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
25 July 2012	Natural	1.0 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	BANKS FIRE
9 June 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
3 June 2011	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
23 June 2007	Equipment and vehicle use	12 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Sussex County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Highball Signal: 1 prospect, 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Elliot Farm Prospect	Iron	Prospect
	Mine Hill Mine	Iron	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Sussex County

Storms near this property

13 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Delmar, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1998 and 2022: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 3 heavy rain, 1 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2012	Lightning	Delmar	$300,000	A lightning strike and ensuing fire caused extensive damage to a home on Eagle Run Lane in Delmar. No injuries were reported.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Delmar	-	County 911 call center reports tree limbs down on East Grove Street in Delmar. Time estimated from radar.
August 2022	Heavy Rain	Delmar	-	CoCoRaHS station DE-SS-62 0.1 miles west-southwest of Delmar.
July 2016	Heavy Rain	Delmar	-	An inch and a half of rain within 90 minutes from thunderstorms.
August 2011	Hail	Delmar	-	Penny size hail fell in Delmar.
July 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Delmar	-	Severe thunderstorms across the southern tier of Sussex County tore down a few trees, tree limbs and wires from Delmar east to Millville.
July 2007	Flash Flood	Delmar	-	no account filed
November 2006	Heavy Rain	Delmar	-	no account filed
August 2005	Funnel Cloud	Delmar	-	no account filed
May 2004	Hail	Delmar	-	no account filed
July 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Delmar	-	no account filed
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Delmar	-	no account filed
June 1998	Hail	Delmar	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Sussex County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
West Potato House	1.7 miles	1990
Stanley Potato House	4.7 miles	1990
Collins Potato House	5.0 miles	1990
Wright Potato House	5.5 miles	1990
Moore Potato House	6.2 miles	1990
Portsville Lighthouse	6.3 miles	1987

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 73000553 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Sussex County	All 136 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.