Cape Charles, located close to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, on Virginia's Eastern Shore, was founded in 1884 as a planned community by railroad and ferry interests.

In 1883, William Lawrence Scott became president of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad Company (NYP&N), and purchased three plantations comprising approximately 2,509 acres from the heirs of former Virginia Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell.

was dredging a new harbor out of a large fresh-water lagoon between King's and Old Plantation creeks in lower Northampton County, and Scott planned to develop a new town around it called Cape Charles City.

The appellation "City" for any place on the Eastern Shore was romantic, a vision of the future that the railroad might make possible....In 1890, the United States Army Corps of Engineers dredged the harbor basin, its entrance, and a channel through Cherrystone Inlet and built stone jetties protecting the harbor outlet.

By 1912 the Engineer Corps estimated that Cape Charles harbor handled 2,500,000 tons of freight a year."

Cape Charles was, for many years, the terminal for the Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry, providing passenger and car ferry service across the mouth of the Bay to Norfolk Portsmouth, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake on the SouthSide / Tidewater and across Hampton Roads harbor to Hampton - Newport News on the northern Virginia Peninsula.

The Chesapeake Bay impact crater formed about 35 million years ago during the late Eocene when a comet fragment or asteroid struck the U.S. Atlantic continental shelf in the area now occupied by the southern part of Chesapeake Bay and adjacent landmasses in the Virginia Coastal Plain.

The beach extends one-half mile along Bay Avenue with a paved walkway bordering the length of the beachfront.

Beach erosion is an ongoing problem and will require sand replenishment on a periodic basis in order to maintain a sandy beachfront.

[5] The nearby 29-acre Cape Charles Natural Area Preserve, owned by Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, has a long boardwalk that traverses several natural communities, including a Maritime Loblolly Pine Forest, and ends at a low bluff overlooking the Chesapeake Bay.

The preserve provides habitat for the federally threatened northeastern beach tiger beetle and is part of the Lower Delmarva Important Bird Area.

During fall bird migration, the forest abounds with migratory songbirds and raptors resting and feeding before continuing their journey across the Chesapeake Bay.

[11] The Cape Charles Harbor serves local industry and commerce operations as well as tourists and recreational users.

The Industrial land use in the Town is concentrated at the Cape Charles Harbor area, and includes the Eastern Shore Railroad, Bayshore Concrete, the commercial dock and the Sustainable Technology Park.