If you could drill down and pull up a sample, oyster shells would be up to 10 feet deep in some places. But that wasn't always the case. Two hundred years ago you would have been standing on low marshy land. As industries like oyster shucking houses, a sawmill, a cannery, and crab picking houses developed here at Navy Point, they needed more land to expand. How did they create it? By filling in the marsh and harbor with discarded oyster shells.
The area where the Crab Claw Restaurant stands was one of the first parts of Navy Point to be built up with oyster shells. Founded as the Eastern Shore Crab Company, the business shucked and sold the local soft-shell (steamer) clams. It expanded in 1966, when owner Bill Jones turned it into a restaurant, shortly after the museum was founded next door. The restaurant, a St. Michaels landmark, is still owned by the family.
[Captions:]
The Crab Claw Restaurant, as pictured to the left, was originally built over the Eastern Shore Clam Company.
Above: Oyster shells, byproducts from Navy Point's shucking houses, are piled on the site where the Crab Claw Restaurant stands today.
Left: Navy Point was much smaller in 1877.
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