Long a holiday staple of American Thanksgiving dinners, in the early 20th century, a sweet potato craze had swept the nation. In Delaware, the sweet potato was king, becoming the state’s staple agricultural product for a time. Although the industry has since declined essentially to extinction, reminders of these glory days of sweet potato farming can be found in a few otherwise plain-looking historic buildings known as “potato houses,” which are scattered around Sussex County in the southwest corner of the state. As early as the 1860s, Delaware was seen…
