Delaware Breakwater Quarantine Station
1884-1926
Many of the European immigrants who came to this country at the end of the nineteenth century brought with them a variety of epidemic diseases including cholera, typhus, smallpox and bubonic plague. This posed a serious threat to urban areas such as Wilmington and Philadelphia. The Delaware Breakwater Quarantine Station was established here at Cape Henlopen by the Federal Government in 1884 to protect these cities by examining all immigrants for contagious diseases. Immigrants who showed signs of such diseases, as well as those suspected of contact with them, were quarantined for 10 to 60 days. The others were able to proceed to their destination point. In its heyday, the hospital could accommodate as many as 1,650 people. At the height of its use, the Station's facilities included a hospital, barracks, stables, and a blacksmith shop, as well as buildings for bathing, disinfecting, cremation, and boat storage. By the time the Quarantine Station was closed during World War I, as many as 200,000 people had passed through this facility.
Marker can be reached from Dock Drive.
Courtesy hmdb.org
