Before the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal became a sea-level canal for ocean-going vessels, there were at least six lighthouses along the 14-mile route between the waters of the Delaware River and the Chesapeake Bay. Navigation aids, these beacons of light, warned tugs, barges, schooners, sloops, and steamboats, that they were approaching a bridge, lock, or some other hazard along the waterway. The thirty-foot wooden towers were fitted with red oil lamps. Lighthouse tenders hoisted the lamps up into the lantern room of the light to signal vessels of the approaching obstacle.
The Army Corps of Engineers completed widening and deepening the canal in 1927, discontinuing the familiar lighthouses that had stood guard along the waterway. The Army Corps of Engineers Museum in Chesapeake City has a full-scale replica of the original Bethel Bridge Lighthouse. The replica was donated by the Chesapeake City Lions Club in 1966.
