From the pages of The Smyrna Times
May 17, 1934
Sussex Agog Over Oil Strike
The Bridgeville section of Sussex County was agog last week after engineers of the Cleveland Petroleum Company trekked into town Thursday night to announce that they had struck oil three miles east of town where they have been drilling for months.
With elation they exhibited to townspeople samples of crude petroleum which they said started to flow when the drilling reached the 400-foot level.
No sooner had they made their announcement than land prices started skyrocketeing in the vicinity of operations, and farm owners began visioning forest of oil derricks replacing the apple orchards of west central Sussex. Talk of “liquid gold” was to be heard on every corner and wherever residents could gather.
Anticipating a rush of speculators that would boom this town into several times its present size, plans for starting new stores, barber shops and other ventures were already being discussed.
The engineers left the next morning for Washington, where they said they would have the oil tested. On their own authority, they declared it was of much better quality than wealth-producing oil they had struck in western states at the same level….
C.C. Lynch, geologist at the University of Delaware, has expressed the opinion the terrain in Delaware does not indicate the presence of oil in profitable quantities. The ground, he explained, must have certain characteristics to retain the oil in pools or veins and that these qualities are lacking in Delaware. Sand is an excellent medium for retaining oil in subterranean deposits, he said, but must be of a special kind, unlike the sand found in Delaware.
Fisherman Net Mammoth Sturgeon
A mammoth sturgeon that yielded 116 pounds of roe was netted in the Delaware River above Woodland Beach shortly before noon Tuesday by Frank Holliday and John Press of Delaware City. The two fishermen successfully landed the huge fish after it had become entangled in their drifting net but only after a hard battle.
The fish was about eight feet long and weighed, before being dressed, between 400 and 500 pounds.
Word of the large fish spread around town quickly and within a short time about half the population of the town was at the dock viewing the unusually large fish.
Joseph Anderson, veteran fisherman and packer of sturgeon roe, who handled the roe and weighed it, said that he believed it is the largest fish ever caught in the Delaware River….
The sturgeon roe is bringing 50 cents a pound, the lowest price in many years. Importation of Russian caviar is said to be the cause of the low price being paid for domestic roe.
