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Photograph of Indian River Life Saving Service Station
Photograph by Smallbones, CC0 1.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Indian River Life Saving Service Station

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

From the record

“The Indian River Life-Saving Station was established between Bethany Beach and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1880 to rescue mariners shipwrecked along the Delaware coast, as part of the United States Life-Saving Service. It was designed in 1874 as a board-and-batten frame structure with decorative brackets supporting overhanging eaves in a version of the Queen Anne style.”

Wikipedia article Indian River Life-Saving Station, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 136 National Register listings published here for Sussex County · listed in 1976 · category: Building.

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 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. N of Bethany Beach on DE 14, Bethany Beach, 19971
  • When was it listed? September 1976
  • Category. building
  • Census division. Lewes
  • National Register reference number. 76000582 - 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

7 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Indian River Life Saving Service Station between 2002 and 2020, burning about 28 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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
Smoking3
Missing data/not specified/undetermined2
Misuse of fire by a minor1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
11 August 2002Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreDelaware State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
16 June 2012Smoking1.0 acresDelaware Forest Servicenot named
26 May 2015Smoking16 acresDelaware Forest ServiceSAVAGES FIRE
5 April 2012Misuse of fire by a minor7.0 acresDelaware Forest Servicenot named
6 March 2002Smokingunder an acreDelaware State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
1 March 2002Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresDelaware State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
19 November 2020Power generation/transmission/distribution2.0 acresDelaware Forest ServiceARROWHEAD FIRE

Every fire recorded in Sussex County

Storms near this property

26 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bethany Beach, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 7 heavy rain, 7 flash flood, 4 lightning, 4 thunderstorm wind. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
July 2002LightningBethany Beach$250,000no account filed
April 2006LightningBethany Beach$100,000no account filed
June 2025Flash FloodBethany Beach-Social media video of multiple roads closed due to flooding at the intersection of Central Blvd and N Pennsylvania Ave.
July 2025Flash FloodBethany Beach-Flash flooding occurred along portions of Garfield Parkway and Hollywood Street.
August 2022Thunderstorm WindBethany Beach-Multiple areas in Bethany Beach, DE with wires down. Time estimated from radar.
June 2021LightningBethany Beach-There was a residential structure fire due to a lightning strike on Henlopen Dr in Bethany Beach. Time estimated from dispatch reports.
July 2020Flash FloodBethany Beach-Widespread flooding occurred in Bethany Beach. Many roads were inundated with 1 to 2.5 feet of water.
August 2019Thunderstorm WindBethany Beach-Wires were downed on Fairway Dr. Time estimated from radar.
August 2017FloodBethany Beach-High water reported covering portions of Bethany Beach.
August 2017FloodBethany Beach-Water covering Hollywood street.
July 2017Heavy RainBethany Beach-The majority of this rain fell on 7/6.
July 2017Heavy RainBethany Beach-Just over three inches of rain fell at this DEOS site.
September 2016Heavy RainBethany Beach-Five inches of rain fell.
September 2016Heavy RainBethany Beach-Three inches of rain in 24 hours.
September 2016FloodBethany Beach-Route 1 closed between Bethany Beach and Dewey beach due to water on the road.
September 2016Heavy RainBethany Beach-Four and a half inches of rain fell.
October 2016Heavy RainBethany Beach-Almost four inches of rain fell.
August 2011Flash FloodBethany Beach-Thunderstorms with torrential downpours caused small stream and field flash flooding in Baltimore Hundred. Doppler Radar storm total estimates reached between 4 and 5 inches, most of which fell within one hour.
August 2010Flash FloodBethany Beach-Thunderstorms dropped a Doppler Radar estimated up to four inches of rain across extreme southeast Sussex County. This caused stream, field and poor drainage flooding.
August 2008Flash FloodBethany Beach-Thunderstorms with heavy rain caused roadway flooding in and around Bethany Beach. Doppler Radar storm total estimates reached around 3 inches in the area, most of which fell within one hour.
July 2002Thunderstorm WindBethany Beach-no account filed
July 2002Flash FloodBethany Beach-no account filed
July 2002Thunderstorm WindBethany Beach-no account filed
August 2001LightningBethany Beach-no account filed
July 1997Heavy RainBethany Beach-no account filed
July 1997HailBethany Beach-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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Tunnell-West House5.9 miles2012
All Saints' Episcopal Church5.9 miles1991
Evans-West House6.1 miles2015
Evans-West House6.1 miles2015
Dodd Homestead6.2 miles1982
Peter Marsh House6.4 miles1977

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 76000582 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Sussex CountyAll 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.
  • 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.