Delmarva
The Delmarva Peninsula juts down the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay on the peninsula’s western side, with the Atlantic Ocean on its eastern. It is apportioned among three states. The Maryland section contains Salisbury and many poultry and produce packers. Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach is included in that tiny state’s portion of the peninsula and the Virginia section includes that state’s famed Eastern shore, including Chincoteague with its noted ponies and other attractions. Although the peninsula is relatively small it is featured in all three of the state’s tourist industries, which are considerable, and all three enjoy marketing the many beaches and recreational activities which are such a large part of the area.
Its size makes the residents, particularly along the areas where the states rub shoulders, so to speak, wonder why three different states control the area and whether or not a single new state, usually called Delmarva by its backers, would be a more sensible solution to the problem of regional governance.
Proposals to create a separate state from the region occurred in 1833, 1835, 1852, and in 1998. In the 1970s rallies and town hall meetings were called in the Maryland counties to generate support for the idea. Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula is divided into two counties – Accomack and Northampton – and support for the idea has considerably less fervor behind it than that from their Maryland neighbors, one reason why the status quo has been retained.
Despite many longstanding attempts to create a single state government on the peninsula, which would be able to focus its attention on local issues without sacrificing time and dollars to issues in the mountainous western portion of Virginia or urbanized eastern Maryland, the likelihood of Delmarva shaking off the yoke of its three parent states seems remote.
There will more than likely be a 51st American state admitted to the Union at a future date, but the possibility of it appearing on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay is unlikely. Delmarva will remain as a name which appears throughout the region as the name of cleaners, restaurants, hotels, insurance agencies, weather reports, and others, rather than the name of the newest of the United States.