A recent commenter inquired why establishing a National Park for Delaware should be a priority…
Considering today’s economy, that is a fair question…
The best answer I can come up with is Mr. Pam Scott.. The group of developers and their liaison with the building trade unions, have no qualms about destroying Delaware’s history to build slums. There…. someone said it.
Federal protection of those historic sites would take them off the table….
Because Delaware is developed, at least in New Castle County, the proposed park will have to be an amalgamation of a series of plots, spread over the whole of the state… It should be offered as a chance to glimpse America as it was during the time of our Independence… There are not many other places where that can be done.. At first thought, the only one I can think of is Fort Louisburg.. and that is not even in the United States… Ok, …Williamsburg, even though it is not original, and was rebuilt with Rockefeller money… Hey, wait! New Castle is mostly original buildings!
Point is, Delaware is an amazing place. The park should somehow encompass and protect the following: Delaware Seashore, Mason Dixon markers, Fenwick Lighthouse, America’s first offshore wind farm, Cyprus swamp, Ceasar Rodney’s Gravesite, the Parson Thorne mansion, the Millers House, Dickenson House, Georgetown Circle, The Green in Dover, an Amish farm, the Chesapeake wetlands surrounding the Tina Fallon ferry, Leipsic, Prime Hook, Port Mahon, our Delaware Bay lighthouse, Historic Lewes, the Underground Railroad sites, Historic Odessa, Blackbird Forest, the Sassafras River, the Delaware-Chesapeake Canal, Delaware City, Endangered Riverbank Beaver Dens, Pea Patch Island, Fort Delaware, Frenchtown Railroad, Historic New Castle, Scenic Route 9, Christiana watershed, White Clay Creek, Red Clay Creek, and Brandywine River scenic rivers, the Pencader encampments, Iron Hill, Cooch’s Bridge Battleground Memorial, Delaware Park, Hagley Mills, Rockford Tower, Winterthur, our Chateau Region, Mushroom farm in Hockesin, University of Delaware Green, Deer Park Tavern, Old Christiana, Delaware Memorial Bridge, Kalmyer Nickle, Trinity Church, The Rocks at Wilmington, American trenches in Marshalltown, the British encampment of Mill Creek.. Home of Judy Johnson, birthplace of Nancy Willing….. so many possibilities….
Some of you may remember the piece I did last year covering this piece of local history, history that almost changed everything….(Refresher?.. it is here)… The reminisces of that event are to be bulldozed under by Pam Scott at the site called The Grange, where Nancy has kept us abreast of this travesty on the level equivalent to the Taliban’s destruction of 1000 year old Buddhas…What Pam Scott’s group plans to do there is just retchably sickening.
Likewise, what Mark Baker was planning to do to Sussex County, was just as retchably sickening… Thank heavens Joan Deaver won with a field goal. Equally disturbing… is that which Rich Collins hopes to do to Kent County…. Fortunately, again, the Levy Court has kicked in his teeth… As long as evil in the form of greed lies unchecked, those parts of Delaware that have survived in part to development passing us by, are in severe danger of being destroyed… Developers have no qualms of torching national treasures, as was done to the historic and magnificent Booth House, just so the Capano White Oak Group could build 10 more units of “affordable housing”..
There is so much that Delaware has to offer, and many Delawareans themselves are unaware of just how magnificently special this region is… We can fight little battles each time a Paul Clark-Pam Scott connected developer wants to build…. or we can fight one big battle in the national limelight….bring in national publicity, national donations, and preserve the traces of liberty that have languished here unnoticed for so long…
That is just a brief window into why bringing a National Park to Delaware should be a priority this decade. You know, if just one tenth of New York or DC visited us over the next fifty years….. it would pay for itself in tourist dollars….
kavips 
16 comments
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November 20, 2008 at 6:38 pm
RSmitty
This has me wondering…what sites were actually being pushed for consideration? I ask because I can’t remember. Were they the current trails north and south of C&D Canal and parts of the current Seashore State Park?
November 21, 2008 at 12:25 am
Duffy
Be wary of ceding control to the feds. Once you do they can do with it what they wish and we cannot stop them. It may put those lands aside from developers but they may also start creating very large easments adjacent to them which could displace people and create all kinds of problems.
November 21, 2008 at 3:10 am
shieldsb52
..or using it to expand Dover AFB, or put a different type of military installation on the coastline. Our military is the largest polluter in the world.
November 21, 2008 at 4:57 am
naturegeek
Carper’s plan is for a National Coastal Heritage Park, with four “interpretive hubs”: http://carper.senate.gov/documents/NP_Proposal.pdf
Sounds a lot like kavips’ plan.
Why do you go to a national park? I’m guessing (a) to see the natural wonders, (b) to see historic sites, or (c) some form of outdoor recreation. This plan offers nothing new – it’s just a mashup of existing sites that NO ONE VISITS TO BEGIN WITH
November 21, 2008 at 5:00 am
naturegeek
Sorry, my mouse button got stuck.
It’s just a mashup of existing sites that no one visits to begin with… do we really think they’d get more visitors just because of the National Park designation?
To make it a big tourist draw, we’d have to offer something that people can’t already come to see. Something new and interesting, or else with a gigantic promotional budget. That’s not in the cards.
November 21, 2008 at 5:43 am
kavips
We WOULD get more visitors because of the National Park status.. But that it not its purpose. Remember Yellowstone was set aside to preserve it’s uniqueness many years before the automobile was invented…
Delaware IS a national treasure. Preserving it from developers is a worthy cause.
If people want to see it, they will come.
November 21, 2008 at 8:27 am
roselle
NO NPS IN DELAWARE.
November 21, 2008 at 8:50 am
kavips
(must be a developer)
November 21, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Duffy
Seriously?
Delaware != Yellowstone. Yellowstone is one of the most heart rendingly beautiful places on the planet. Delaware, while it has some nice beaches is largely flat, scrubby, marshy and (forgive me) boring.
Ski Delaware? No.
Rock climbing? No.
Rolling hills? No.
Lush forests? No.
Moose, bison, elk, bear? No.
Rivers for rafting and fishing? Not really.
Awesome frisbee golf course? Yes.
Drunken ill mannered reprobates BBQing with tooth chippingly loud bad music on weekends? Yes^2
Help me out here. How exactly does branding something a “National Park” bring the hordes of tourists that will then befoul them? Seems to me if you loved the parks you’d have them declared inviolable and boring so nobody would want to go and leave their trash there.
November 22, 2008 at 1:44 am
kavips
In an effort to help you out, there are a couple of misnomers and different impressions as to what officially makes up a National Park site…. The National Park Service oversees all National Parks, National Monuments, National Preserves, National Historic Sites, National Historic Parks, National Memorials, National Battlefields, National Cemeteries, National Recreation Areas, National Seashores, National Lakeshores, National Rivers, National Parkways, National Trails, as well as other affiliated areas including 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue….
Just so others may be clear, my comparison of Yellowstone to Delaware’s historical sites, was done on the principal of society’s recognizing and preserving something which is unique, and preserving it so future generations can marvel…. and not to suggest both sites were sitting upon the same geological formations…. that of a magma hot vent…
Just for fun, as well as for your education, allow me to turn around Duffy’s rant upon himself, with a little additional substitution done on my part…. ….You all know that Liberty Island, is owned and operated by the National Park Service, correct? So…. let’s make that the subject of Duffy’s statement to prove a point…
Ski the Statue of Liberty? No.
Rock climbing? No.
Rolling hills? No.
Lush forests? No.
Moose, bison, elk, bear? No.
Rivers for rafting and fishing? Not really.
Awesome frisbee golf course? Yes. (no)
Drunken ill mannered reprobates BBQing with tooth chippingly loud bad music on weekends? Yes^2 (Again no.)
Help me out here. How exactly does branding something a “National Park” bring the hordes of tourists that will then befoul them? Seems to me if you loved the parks you’d have them declared inviolable and boring so nobody would want to go and leave their trash there.
I was going to continue with a long argument …. but after rereading how the above just came out… the point has already been sufficiently made….
November 22, 2008 at 2:26 am
John Tobin
I think you may be on to something.
The developers’ appetite for land is part of the reason I don’t necessarily oppose the state buying golf courses which drives some talk radio folks up a wall.
In that case if the state owns it, it stays green for awhile and you still have options. If the developers get ahold of land , it’s gone.
In what you describe , if it becomes National Park land it can’t be developed.
November 26, 2008 at 8:28 pm
obs
kavips,
Actually, a National Park is a National Park. The sites you list may all be run by the NPS, but they’re not National Parks anymore than my backyard is a National Park. Your post was about creating a National Park. If you want to change the subject, that’s cool, just be intellectually honest.
You wrote: “if just one tenth of New York or DC visited us over the next fifty years….. it would pay for itself in tourist dollars…”
Actually, we do get a ton of tourists from those areas, and from Maryland and Pennsylvania, besides. They already have the opportunity to visit the long list of places you mentioned. Instead, they ignore them in favor of the Sussex beaches.
Pick up a stack of brochures at the rest stop on 13 in Smyrna next time you’re there. Those sites are ALREADY promoted and advertised, and very few people visit them. A bigger marketing budget can’t do magic.
If we had a single historic site in need of preserving, I’d say go ahead, put it under some sort of NPS designation. If we had a huge natural land area in need of preserving, I’d say go ahead. But your plan and Carper’s proposal seem like desperation moves – “let’s do it because everyone else has one!” – just stringing together a laundry list of existing sites in a hail mary pass for federal cash, because the state and local governments haven’t done the job. That’s not a good enough reason to create a NPS site. It IS a good enough reason to work hard to defeat those developers.
November 27, 2008 at 10:39 am
kavips
Actually you list all my reasons..
1) It forever preserves what is unique to Delaware.
2) It does so in an arena where developers don’t play, and cannot win.
3) It elevates our national stature far better than rest stop brochures.
4) It brings people ($) here; it doesn’t chase them away..
It’s a win, win, win situation.
And I believe your counter argument, actually convincingly makes the case that we, being the first state, should be the first ones to create a National Park that is like our lives today, not contiguous, but a series of interconnected dots…. all worthy of preservation.
And I think it should be called Delaware National Park… for that is what it is… everything that is unique about Delaware.
Because if one were to ask,….”ok, what’s so special about Delaware anyway…” the perfect answer is this: Delaware is unique among the original thirteen colonies because from 1830 to 1985, the historical force of economic development…. had passed us by… thereby preserving our state in a form where one could see how life was during our nation’s founding…..
Of course…. someone who has lived here all their life, would have little clue as to how wonderful those scattered pieces really are.
December 15, 2008 at 10:07 am
Nancy Willing
Good Job, Kavips! ..and I respectfully disagree with John’s being fine with golf courses posing as significant public resources or even critter habitat.
ugh, if I had a million hours to respond to this post it wouldn’t be enough time. As it is I am flying out the door for the day. BBL.
May 4, 2009 at 11:39 pm
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