The Spy ventured down route 2o to Rock Hall last Sunday to take part in the Tolchester Beach Revisited Museum celebration. The museum has received over 20,000 visitors since opening in 1999; (as of 3 pm that day the count was up to 20,200). We arrived a bit too late for the hot dogs, ice cream and music, (including Mainstay founder Tom McHugh singing his tune, “Sailin’ Out of Baltimore”), but did manage to grab some time with founder and curator Bill Betts.
Betts, who just turned 90, has manned the museum every weekend but two since its inception. Beginning with a collection of Tolchester Beach postcards he had amassed, Betts now presides over three rooms full of Tolchester memorabilia donated by visitors and locals over the past thirteen years. Although he is a Pennsylvania native, his mother was from Centreville, and he has a hazy recollection of visiting the resort as a child. Betts said that the amusement park, in operation from 1877 to 1962, was at a time one of the largest resorts in the state, and employed 90% of eligible Rock Hall residents. He added that most of the buildings and attractions were razed or torched, with the exception of the Tolchester Beach Bandstand, which Walter Harris rescued, and later donated to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, where it currently resides and is put to good use.
Attending Sunday’s celebration were various local dignitaries, including delegate Jay Jacobs, town manager Ron Fithian, and Mayor Bob Willis, who proclaimed August 19 Tolchester Beach Revisted Museum Day. Additionally, the Historical Society of Kent County presented Betts with an award of merit for his singular contribution. Betts said that the Rock Hall Museum will take over when he retires, although he has no plans to do so in the near future.
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