Images of America

Long known as "Delaware's Broadway Experience," the DuPont Theatre is the embodiment of the entertainment phrase, "The show must go on!" It has survived dramatic and traumatic historical events, including the 1929 stock market crash, the Great Depression, two world
wars, the rise of motion pictures and television, a name change from the Playhouse to the DuPont Theatre, and a terrorist attack on our country that resonated globally. Despite these events, it continues to thrive as the oldest continuously operating legitimate theater in the United States. Constructed in only 150 days and strategically located adjacent to the elegant Hotel du Pont and DuPont corporate headquarters, the DuPont Theatre is a mainstay in the cultural life of Wilmington. Promoted in the early 1900s as a "dress rehearsal" venue for the largest New York Broadway shows, the stage can accommodate everything from live animals to an automobile accident, making it possible to present nearly every Broadway production in the theater's Broadway series.

Hockessin Colored School #107C became a catalyst for the groundbreaking school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. This seldom-told story is among the nation’s unsung heroes of public education with a life and legacy that spanned over 180 years. Residents of the Hockessin colored community built and operated their own school prior to construction of the 1920 brick school building erected by P.S. duPont. Eventually, descendants of those same residents would witness the closing and conversion of their patrimony. Hockessin Colored School #107C—now the First State’s Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Equity—is a beacon of light and an incubator of history for children throughout the United States.

Milford, Delaware, is a unique town in the heart of southern Delaware with one foot in Kent County and the other in Sussex County. Location is a major thread of success for Milford-it is within 100 miles of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Baltimore and only a short 25-minute drive to the Delaware beaches. Greater Milford offers a rare blend of relaxed rural life and progressive, modern convenience. The historic district, riverfront greenway, and civic-minded residents lend a charm to Milford not found in every small town.

Visit Milford of days gone by and glimpse the early English settlers who would shape tracts of land into a promising town. See how the area once called "Saw Mill Range" evolved from primitive woodlands into the commercial center known as Milford. Distinguish all the enterprising leaders who made Milford a thriving town with their innovations like canning and fruit drying and shipbuilding. The Mispillion River, Marshall's Mill, Milford Chronicle, Calvary Church, Slaughter Beach Hotel, Cedar Neck, the Levin Crapper Mansion built in 1763, Purity Row, along with the people, businesses, and events presented in this photographic celebration showcase what makes Milford an exceptional place to live and prosper.

Launched in Wilmington in 1997, Kalmar Nyckel—The Tall Ship of Delaware—is one of the region’s great educational resources, a floating classroom and inspirational platform for a broad array of land-and sea-based programs.

An accurate replica of the original Swedish naval vessel that launched the colony of New Sweden in the Delaware Valley in 1638, today’s Kalmar Nyckel voyages over 2,000 nautical miles and reaches more than 30,000 students, passengers, and visitors a year. A photographer’s dream wherever she goes, Kalmar Nyckel embodies America’s maritime heritage and has become one of Delaware’s defining treasures.

Samuel W. Heed, Esq., is the senior historian and director of education at the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation, where since 2008 he has been developing the programs, exhibits, articles, and documentaries that bring the Kalmar Nyckel story to life and give it meaning. Heed serves on a number of nonprofit boards, including the Council of American Maritime Museums. The Kalmar Nyckel Foundation archives provided the primary resources for this book.

The Catholic faith was first brought to the peninsula that lies between
the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays in the seventeenth century by Jesuit
priests who rode circuit from the Maryland colony, offering Mass and bringing
the sacraments to private homes. As the country grew, so too did the Catholic
community on Delmarva, and many new churches and missions were founded.
From the earliest established church'St. Francis Xavier Mission in Cecil
County, Maryland, founded in 1704--to Salesianum School, the first high
school in Delaware to be racially integrated, from the involvement in the diocese
of American saints John Neumann and Elizabeth Ann Seton to a variety of
religious orders and organizations, these honored institutions and remarkable
individuals helped to shape the minds and spirits of young and old alike
The story of the Diocese of Wilmington, which split off from the Diocese of
Philadelphia in 1868, is not just one of church construction dates--it is the story
of its people. From the colorful settlement of French exiled after a slave rebellion
in Haiti to the New World immigrants of Irish, German, Italian, Polish, and
later, Hispanic descent, the Catholic community in the region has been diverse,
vibrant, and steadfast in a shared faith. From its humble beginnings, the diocese
has grown to serve a population of more than 190,000 members with 56 parishes,
20 missions, and 37 schools and has fostered a strong civic tradition in athletics,
theater, and community festivals.

Images of America: Delaware State Police illustrates the storied past of the Delaware State Police from 1920 to 1985.

April 28, 1923, marks the birth of the Delaware State Police. Discussions occurred as early as 1906 for a statewide police organization to cope with speeding automobiles, roving bands of troublemakers, and the ever-present bootleggers. Prohibition and the 18th Amendment brought the discussion to the forefront. With the hiring of Charles J. McGarigle and Joseph A. McVey, the Delaware Highway Police Department came to fruition on January 1, 1920. Using many never-before-published photographs from the Delaware State Police Museum archive,

Forty Acres was developed into a neighborhood in the 19th century from a 40-acre parcel of farmland. Just as many other neighborhoods have ethnic associations, many Irish Wilmingtonians have their roots in Forty Acres. Some Forty Acres families stayed for generations, and the neighborhood was popular well into the 20th century. What makes Forty Acres different is its sense of community and the close-knit relationships developed between its residents. While it is admired for its historic charm, the neighborhood is an urban community made up of a mixed-use residential and commercial village within the city of Wilmington. Today Forty Acres continues to be a place where the word "neighbor" holds strength, value, and friendship.

The Village of Arden was founded in 1900 by sculptor Frank Stephens and architect Will Price, both social reformers who sought to create an ideal society based on principles set forth by the American economist Henry George. With funding from Joseph Fels, a wealthy Philadelphia soap manufacturer who also financed C. R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft in England, Stephens and Price purchased 162 acres in northern Delaware and named their colony after the Arden forest of William Shakespeare's As You Like It. The community's motto was "You Are Welcome Hither," but Arden's founders did not anticipate the diverse and colorful mix of radicals and progressives their experiment would attract, including Upton Sinclair, muckraking author of The Jungle, and Scott Nearing, author of Living the Good Life. Through photographs, Images of America: Arden explores the early history of one of this country's most vibrant, yet little known, utopian experiments.

Dunleith, a community just two miles south of Wilmington, arose in the early 1950s and was the first African American housing development marketed in Delaware. African Americans, many of whom were World War II veterans, teachers, and blue-collar workers, purchased their first homes in Dunleith. During this period of civil rights programs, finding equal education and housing opportunities was a challenge, particularly for African Americans. The school and churches of the Dunleith Estates community encouraged a generation of families to persevere through this difficult period. The rich history of the community is documented through vintage photographs in Images of America: Dunleith.

Once a place of war, then a place of health, and finally, preservation, Fort DuPont has had a long and interesting history.

Fort DuPont is named in honor of Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont and located on the Reeden Point tract, land initially granted to Henry Ward in 1675. The first fortification built was the Ten Gun Battery during the Civil War, a heavily armed earthwork fortification dedicated to protecting the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal--as Sgt. Bishop Crumrine wrote in 1864, "These guns command the channel and could blow to atoms any vessel rash enough to attempt to pass.'? In the decades to follow, the battery at Delaware City was gradually modernized into a formidable military post that remained active through World War II. Declared surplus in post-war peacetime, the site reopened in 1948 as the Governor Bacon Health Center, and by 1996, over 300 acres were reestablished as Fort DuPont State Park.