Kiptopeke State Park, a 562-acre park near Cape Charles on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, occupies a landscape where Indigenous history, bay transportation, and modern recreation meet. The area was home to Native communities before English colonization; in 1608 John Smith visited and later identified villages ruled by Kiptopeke and his brother Esmy Shichans. Centuries later the site became the northern terminal of the Little Creek–Cape Charles Ferry, operating until the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel replaced it in 1964. Sold to the state in 1992, it became Virginia’s first Eastern Shore state park, with Chesapeake beach access, trails, fishing, camping, bird habitat, and concrete ships offshore protecting the old harbor.

Cape Charles, Virginia · USA