WWII tower lights up the night at Delaware Seashore State Park

For decades, the World War II fire control towers along Delaware’s southern shoreline have silently sat in the sand as beach-goers stopped by to take photos and coastal storms battered their concrete sides.

Now one of those towers – Tower 3 on Tower Road in Delaware Seashore State Park – is even more likely to catch the attention of millions of people who drive past the 58-foot-tall tower each year.

“It’s one thing to have this natural heritage and this beautiful state,” said Gov. John Carney. “But it’s another thing to present them, to preserve them, to make them accessible to the public.”

Starting on Monday, Tower 3 will be illuminated by the same cobalt blue lighting seen each night on the Charles W. Cullen Bridge over the Indian River Inlet.

The inaugural illumination on Monday was paired with an announcement of the first economic impact study on the First State’s parks system, which found that each $1 invested in parks sees a $40 economic return.

“What we love as Delawareans is what visitors love when they come here,” said Linda Parkowski, acting director of the Division of Small Business, Development and Tourism. “Unless you have data, sometimes you can’t prove your point. State parks are a huge economic driver for the state of Delaware.”

In addition to the return on investment, the economic impact study also found that without the parks system, Delaware households would have to hand over an additional $151 per year to fill in the gap. Parks also provided 6,000 jobs in the state, and spurred more than $50 million in state and local taxes from related industries.

Historical preservationists behind the Fort Miles Historical Association and the Delaware Seashore Preservation Foundation said they hope the new lighting on the tower will boost those numbers even more.

“We will be reconnecting, in a very real way, Tower 3 and Fort Miles, by restoring it to allow reenactments of the job it did so well many years ago,” said Shirley Price, vice president of the Delaware Seashore Preservation Foundation. “But we’re also creating a monument to those who served, past, present and future.”

Tower 3 is one of 11 fire control towers still standing in Delaware – the only state in the nation that still has all of its original fire control towers, said Fort Miles Historical Association President Gary Wray. The towers were used to search for enemy ships, and connected to the Fort Miles base in Cape Henlopen State Park.

The concrete structures were built in a hurry – the one-foot thick concrete poured within two weeks – and were meant to last for 20 years. But 75 years later, they are still standing and will not be going anywhere any time soon, Wray said.

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“Our organization was born under this tower in August of 2003, so we’ve always wanted to light it up and get people talking about the towers and the fort and now the museum at the fort,” he said. “A key front in WWII was the home front, and we tell the story of the home front.”

But restoring Tower 3 has not been an easy feat. It has taken more than a decade, $60,000 and scraping three tons of bird droppings to begin the restoration of the sandy structure overlooking the sea.

The state parks system, Fort Miles Historical Association and the Delaware Seashore Preservation Foundation are planning another round of upgrades to Tower 3 to include interpretive tours of the tower, installing a staircase inside and connecting it to the existing amenities at Tower Road beach.

“It’s one of the most visible signs of Fort Miles and yet [the towers are] just the tip of the iceberg,” said Fort Miles Historical Association member John Roberts, who is one of the original “Bunker Busters” leading the volunteer effort to restore the towers. “Everybody knows about the towers, but no one knows about the fort. That’s going to change.”

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.