on their way to and from salt ponds located closer to the coast. The Hall family eventually came into possession of the land. W. S. Hall opened a general store on his farm there shortly after 1800. A village known as Hall's Store – the future Ocean View – soon sprang up around the store, and for this reason the members of the Hall family are considered the founders of Ocean View. In 1822 a post office was established in Hall's Store. Legend has it that a young man climbed a tree in the area and saw the Atlantic Ocean, hence the name Ocean View. After the American Civil War (1861–1865) people began to take an interest in visiting the Atlantic beaches to the east of Hall's Store and it was discovered that the Atlantic Ocean was visible from the second story of some buildings in the village; because of this, Hall's Store was renamed Ocean View. Ocean View was incorporated on April 13, 1889, and held its first town council meeting on April 20, 1889. The town was an isolated community for much of the 19th century; the nearest railroad, constructed in 1874, came no closer than Dagsboro, and although the opening of the Assawoman Canal – which ran past what had once been Scarborough's Middlesex Plantation – in the late 19th century improved access to Ocean View, it did little to boost the town's economy. Not until the rise of the automobile in the early 20th century did visitors begin to come to Ocean View in increasing numbers. In 1923, Ocean View became the birthplace of the commercial broiler industry when Mrs. Cecilie Long Steele revolutionized the poultry industry by raising the first commercial flock of broiler-fryer-sized chickens there. Although Ocean View itself is no longer involved in the raising of chickens, the industry went on to become Delaware's most important agricultural activity. After World War II, interest in land near the Delaware beaches increased exponentially as the Delmarva Peninsula became ever-more accessible to automobile traffic from large Eastern cities. The real estate boom spread to Ocean View, increasing land prices there substantially during the latter half of the 20th century. Transportation Roads are the main means of transportation to and from Ocean View. Delaware Route 26 is the primary state highway serving the town. It bisects the town on an east-west alignment, heading eastward toward Bethany Beach